They came up with a plan. Murphy snapped up domains for every still available iteration of reopenAL.com, reopenAK.com, reopenAR.com, and so forth, that hadn’t already been purchased, along with every domain he could for variations like liberateWV.com, liberateWY.com, and liberateWI.com. The idea was to preempt any further such purchases by people genuinely seeking to organize protests.

“I realized all these fringe guys are gonna get a hold of these websites, So I went out and bought ‘em up that night,” he told me. The financial burden of thwarting fringe-right groups? “It cost me about four grand,” Murphy said. “I don’t have the money quite frankly. I was just trying to do something good. I’m in massive credit debt to do this.”

Murphy said that he recognized that his plan isn’t foolproof. While similar domains have already been obtained and still remain up for purchase, he thinks keeping fringe-right wingers from the one’s he purchased has made a difference. He said he believes such short concise domain names are important in search rankings. “Names are really powerful. That’s why people pay millions for certain domains,” he said.

After buying the URLs, things were initially quiet. But on Saturday night a Reddit post detailing information about the domain registrations went viral. While the message didn’t directly identify Murphy, it gave instructions on how to find his name alongside speculation that he must be running an anti-lockdown astroturf campaign—even though Murphy’s intentions were the exact opposite. On Twitter, people doxxed him, posting his address and home number.

In 2009, the right-wing network helped build the tea party movement. It’s happening again.

In recent days, thousands of people have protested against coronavirus lockdowns in states across the country. The demonstrators—often wearing MAGA gear and directing their ire at Democratic governors—still represent a small minority; polls show that most Americans are actually worried the shutdowns will be ended too soon. But according to Matt Gertz, that could change quickly. Gertz, a senior fellow at the liberal group Media Matters for America, points out that Fox News has thrown its full weight behind the protests and that Donald Trump has followed the right-wing network’s lead. “Once you have Fox News and President Trump championing these protests for a while,” Gertz predicts, “you’ll see polarization kick in, I think, and Republicans begin to support them in larger numbers.”

Between April 13 and April 19, Fox devoted a whopping 4 hours and 23 minutes—across 69 separate segments—to covering the protests, a Media Matters report found. All this is eerily reminiscent of 2009, when Fox helped turn the nascent tea party movement into a powerful anti-Obama political force by relentlessly promoting its rallies. (Disclosure: I worked with Gertz at Media Matters back then.) On Monday, I spoke with Gertz about Fox’s coverage of the anti-social distancing demonstrations, its impact on Trump, and the striking similarities to what happened a decade ago. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.