stay at home shelter covid
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">420 much belated</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">aha trump 2020 win depends on beating down covid truth of fail, thus mercer koch astroturf</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">5/20 bak html end </font><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Mosendz</b><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-white-supremacists-take-encouragement-from-government-leaders/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-white-supremacists-take-encouragement-from-government-leaders/</a></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/cellphone-data-reveals-right-wing-lockdown-protesters-may-be-spreading-covid-19-neither-ironic-or-funny/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/cellphone-data-reveals-right-wing-lockdown-protesters-may-be-spreading-covid-19-neither-ironic-or-funny/</a></div><div>
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</div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.the GUK .com/us-news/2020/apr/18/coronavirus-americans-protest-stay-at-home</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx many pix</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Thousands of Americans backed by rightwing donors gear up for protests</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative activists to demand governors lift stay-home orders – and movement has been driven by wealthy conservative groups</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adam Gabbatt</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> @adamgabbatt</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Sat 18 Apr</b> 2020 06.00 EDT...</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the rallies have been inspired by a protest at the Michigan state capitol.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Many of the rallies have been inspired by a protest at the Michigan state capitol. Photograph: Matthew Dae Smith/AP</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thousands of people are preparing to attend protests across the US in the coming days, as a rightwing movement against stay-at-home orders, backed by wealthy conservative groups and promoted by Donald Trump, continues to take hold.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative activists are demanding governors lift orders designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, despite the recommendations of public health officials. Trump, who has clashed with Democratic governors over how soon to reopen the US economy, tweeted his support on Friday, in an unprecedented endorsement of civil disobedience by a sitting president.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the planned rallies have been inspired by a protest at the Michigan state capitol on Wednesday, which was attended by thousands.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2:09</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Armed protesters demand an end to Michigan's coronavirus lockdown orders – video</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet while organisers claim the protests are grassroots- and people-driven, a closer look reveals a movement driven by traditional rightwing groups, including one funded by the family of Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The rallies have drawn comparisons to the Tea Party movement, which sprang into life in 2009 following the election of Barack Obama and was driven in part by Americans for Prosperity, a group founded by rightwing donors Charles and David Koch.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As with the Tea Party, the anti-stay-at-home movement has been promoted by a rightwing media eager for the economy to reopen, including Fox News which on Friday aired a segment on protests in Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota. Two minutes later, Trump tweeted to his 77.4 million followers the need to “liberate” those states.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1:40</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b> 'They seem very responsible to me': Trump defends anti-lockdown protesters </b>- video</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A majority of Americans support the lockdowns, with a Pew Research Center poll finding that 66% are concerned state governments will lift restrictions on public activity too quickly. But protests, helped by media coverage, have spread around the country.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The two groups behind the “operation gridlock” rally in Michigan on Wednesday have ties to the Republican party and the Trump administration.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Michigan Freedom Fund, which said it was a co-host of the rally, has received more than $500,000 from the DeVos family, regular donors to rightwing groups.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The other host, the Michigan Conservative Coalition, was founded by Matt Maddock, now a Republican member of the state house of representatives. The MCC also operates under the name Michigan Trump Republicans, and in January held an event featuring several members of the Trump campaign.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Absolutely the Michigan event was a huge inspiration and it was a huge success,” said Evie Harris, organizer of a ReOpen Maryland protest planned for the state capitol on Saturday.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“That was the model for our event.”</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thousands drove to the Michigan state capitol in Lansing, while the Michigan Freedom Fund purchased Facebook advertising to promote the rally. Protesters, many waving Trump campaign signs, honked their horns and chanted for Governor Gretchen Whitmer to end the stay-at-home rules.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The protest was covered exhaustively by the rightwing media.<b> Harris said her Facebook following grew from “700-800 people” to more than 15,000 members following the Michigan rally, inspiring her to organize “Operation Gridlock Annapolis” for Saturday.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Harris said her group had support from some elected officials in Maryland, but declined to name them.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While ReOpen Maryland might not have funding from rightwing advocacy groups, it appears to be linked to at least four other “reopen” organizations.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Government mandating sick people to stay home is called quarantine,” ReOpen Maryland said. “However, the government mandating healthy citizens to stay home, forcing businesses and churches to close is called tyranny.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That text is identical to text on Facebook pages calling for rallies in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Virginia. ReOpen Virginia aims to hold its own “gridlock” rally on Wednesday – again inspired by the conservative-funded Michigan event.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Despite ReOpen Virginia billing itself as a “grassroots group of people and small business owners”, founder Kristen Lynne Hall said the idea for the protest came from the organizers of the “Lobby Day” demonstration earlier this year.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That demonstration was organized by the <b>Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group</b> that has donated tens of thousands of dollars to politicians.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hall, who said Candace Owens, a rightwing activist and favorite of Trump, had been in touch to discuss the event, said the president’s tweet about “liberating” Virginia was “great”.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It could be spreading the movement,” she said. “Any support is appreciated right now.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A decade ago, the Tea Party movement billed itself as “grass roots”, despite receiving money from the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the conservative organization FreedomWorks.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jenny Beth Martin, who founded the Tea Party Patriots group, promoted this week’s Michigan protest. The Tea Party Patriots also supported the protest, in messages to its 200,000 Twitter followers.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, said the similarities between the Tea Party and ReOpen movements went further, with rightwing media boosting both.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Fox News ran favorable coverage of the Michigan rally and hosts including Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro endorsed the protest.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Fox gave the Tea Party a phenomenal amount of attention and promotion,” Gertz said. “It really sort of boot-strapped it to another level, and made it a political force, and we see something similar happening with these anti-stay-at-home order movements.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gertz said he was not “simply” concerned with “the conservatives having a strong election the next time out”.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s a real chance for devastating consequences with regard to the coronavirus,” he said.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 520</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-reopening-protests-reminiscent-of-the-tea-party-era-are-fizzling/2020/05/12/96ba09f6-9488-11ea-9f5e-56d8239bf9ad_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">writing</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Washington Post</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, columnist Kathleen Parker identified a key reason why the nationwide protests against stay-at-home orders are starting to fade away: Some of the key special interests bankrolling them have had second thoughts.</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Recent attempts to reenact the erstwhile tea party protests in a movement to oppose coronavirus-related shutdowns have shown signs of fizzling despite President Trump’s weird cheerleading,” wrote Parker. “They are, after all, shouting down Trump’s own guidelines for trying to contain the new coronavirus, which has afflicted more than 1.4 million Americans and led to more than 81,000 deaths in the United States.
“The protesters began losing steam when the Koch network, underwriters of the tea party movement from a decade ago, decided to run with scientists instead of the gun-toting provocateurs trampling the spring-green grass around state capitols,” wrote Parker. “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The chief executive of Americans for Prosperity, the main political arm of the network, said the group prefers working with doctors, data crunchers and public policy leaders to create guidelines for a safe and staggered reopening of American businesses.”</span></font></p><div class="story_page_incontent_instagram_container story_page_incontent_ig" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“While this approach may prove challenging, the concept itself is simple,” wrote Parker. “Based on what we’ve learned since January, a modified return to ‘normal’ is the only prudent course of action, as credible experts have said again and again. But Trump, like a child who covers his ears and sings tra-la-la-la-la, prefers to hear only what erupts from his lips.”“As a president might have said, the virus is still with us, but we’ve so far prevailed despite great hurt, fear, unemployment, lost wages, depression, sadness, loneliness and grief over the sick and the dead,” concluded Parker. “While staying apart, we have come together and learned new ways to live more simply, generously and compassionately. Those are not small things. Let’s not let our politics — or politicians — take that away." ...</font></p></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha: abortion turned xian anti-gubmint; in 80's RR teevangelists had TV programs/stations; Rove courted (organized) for Bush 43; now drollinger cabinet and GOTV network (AI/digital tracking?); scary overlap with militias?! patriot prayer</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/why-religious-freedom-stokes-coronavirus-protests-in-the-u-s/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/why-religious-freedom-stokes-coronavirus-protests-in-the-u-s/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/pamela-e-klassen-1034804" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Pamela E. Klassen</a>, <span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-toronto-1281" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">University of Toronto</a></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Religious freedom, cherished as an American ideal, has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/coronavirus-churches-florida-social-distancing" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">frequently invoked in the United States</a> during protests against COVID-19 public health measures.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In Canada,</b> forms of protests — including by churches — are more likely to focus on the systemic underfunding of long-term care and <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/church-program-hands-out-tents-to-people-in-need-of-shelter-amid-pandemic-1.4898313?cache=" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">homeless shelters</a> or the lack of sufficient medical and water infrastructure in <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-indigenous-communities-and-covid-19-the-virus-may-not-discriminate/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Indigenous communities</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Why the difference?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Across the U.S., conservative Christians flouted state and municipal social distancing orders as late as March 31, sometimes by overtly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/florida-megachurch-pastor-arrested-for-breaching-covid-19-health-order" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">breaking the law</a>, claiming that<b>God, not the state, will protect the people.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the Christian Holy Week, evangelical and Pentecostal church leaders, often backed by Republican politicians, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/11/coronavirus-easter-kansas-kentucky-restrict-religious-gatherings-church/2975593001/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">brought lawsuits</a> against state and municipal governments, arguing that curtailing religious gatherings for the sake of limiting the spread of COVID-19 was a breach of religious freedom.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">With lightning speed, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/14/us/14reuters-health-coronavirus-usa-religion.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">federal</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/12/832644243/kansas-supreme-court-upholds-governors-order-limiting-the-size-of-easter-service" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">state</a> lawyers weighed in on the balance between public health measures and religious liberty.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By contrast, the story in Canada is largely one of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pandemic-religion-islam-jewish-christian-1.5515588" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">religious organizations</a> of all varieties <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-faith-communities-are-responding-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic-135281" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">co-operating</a> with public health measures. To date, there is no equivalent in Canada of these high-profile COVID-19 legal battles in which churches reject both public health directives and state legislation.</font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.3em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Suspicion of science, government</font></h2><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Religiously based suspicion of scientific and government authority is not unique to conservative Christians; Hasidic Jewish communities share these suspicions and constitute a significant number of those infected with COVID-19 in <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-hasidic-jews-rabbi-funeral-brooklyn-social-distancing/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">New York state</a>.</font></p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{" tweetid="tweetId" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even in the case of Hasidic Jews, however, the border might make a difference: Hasidic communities <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-hasidic-jewish-community-north-of-montreal-placed-under-14-day/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">in Québec</a> have been praised for their diligence in adhering to social distancing, in contrast to those <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opinion/hasidic-jews-covid-distancing.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">in New York</a>, where some rabbis have mocked public health recommendations.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The contrasting responses to COVID-19 in Canada and the United States are rooted in very different national attitudes about individual and collective responsibility for public health.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the United States, Democratic front-runner Joe Biden may come to embrace Bernie Sander’s plan for “<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/what-biden-can-do-about-pressure-to-embrace-medicare-for-all.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Medicare for All</a>,” but even the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/opinion/protest-social-distancing-covid.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">devastating reality</a> of being the country hardest hit so far by COVID-19 has not seemed to turn the tide of public opinion on the need for universal medicare.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In Canada, by contrast, leaders across the political spectrum are throwing their support behind public health care, with even <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-seniors-care-home-neglect-is-our-national-shame/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">some conservative politicians</a> calling for more funding, especially for long-term care</b>. While Donald Trump tweeted a call to anti-public health protesters to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-governors.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“liberate” their states</a>, in Ontario, Conservative Premier Doug Ford dismissed a scattering of such protesters in Toronto as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-covid-19-cases-long-term-care-staff-1.5545042" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">selfish “yahoos.”</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Invoking religious freedom in an attempt to opt out of health-care legislation is much more common in the U.S. than Canada. Both countries protect religious freedom, dating back to 1791 in the United States with the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">First Amendment</a> of the constitution guaranteeing the “free exercise” of religion, while in Canada, <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms</a> has protected the “freedom of conscience and religion” since 1982.</font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.3em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Religious freedom as a rallying cry</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">These parallel guarantees, however, stem from </span><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Varieties-of-Religious-Establishment-1st-Edition/Beaman-Sullivan/p/book/9781409452416" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">very different histories</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> of using religious freedom as a rallying cry, including to resist public health care. I’ve discussed this in my research</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">, especially in relation to <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/secular-bodies-affects-and-emotions-9781350065239/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">women’s reproductive health</a>.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the wake of former U.S. president Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, for example, Catholics and evangelical groups used a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/us/hobby-lobby-case-supreme-court-contraception.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">religious freedom argument</a> to contest the new mandate that their health insurance plans provide access to contraception for women employees.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Canada, the less frequent citing of <a href="https://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/religion-and-the-exercise-of-public-authority-9781849467155/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">religious freedom rights in the courts to curtail health-care access</a> may be related to a wider acceptance of health care as a public good and a basic human right.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In both Canada and the U.S., the struggle for publicly funded health care in the mid-20th century depended on coalitions of politicians, medical professionals and religious leaders. In Canada, a Baptist minister-turned-politician, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/history/EPISCONTENTSE1EP15CH2PA4LE.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Tommy Douglas</a>, galvanized the country with a vision that public health care for all was a human right and, for some, also a <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520270992/spirits-of-protestantism" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">religious obligation</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similarly, in the U.S., when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/podcasts/1619-slavery-healthcare.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Dr. Montague Cobb</a>, leader of the National Medical Association, successfully argued for Medicare before Congress in 1965, he concluded his testimony with a Christian hymn.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Canadian version of public health care, however, now serves a much wider range of the population than Medicare does in the U.S., and has become a cornerstone of Canada’s national identity, with minimal overt connections to religion.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But in the United States, public health care remains a source of profound national and religious division. </b>The current Republican administration regularly uses religious freedom legislation, including conscientious objection rules for health-care providers, to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-the-new-religious-exemptions-law-means-for-your-health-care" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">chip away at Medicare</a>, limiting access to health care for women, LGBTQ, poor and rural people.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A time of reckoning is coming when public health measures and public and private health-care delivery will be assessed for their effectiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic. The role of religious communities and the ideals of religious freedom in supporting or impeding public health must be included in this reckoning, especially in the United States.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/pamela-e-klassen-1034804" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Pamela E. Klassen</a>, Professor of the Study of Religion, <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-toronto-1281" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">University of Toronto</a></em></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-religious-freedom-stokes-coronavirus-protests-in-the-u-s-but-not-canada-136557" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">original article</a>.</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/do-republicans-have-a-god-given-right-to-infect-you/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/do-republicans-have-a-god-given-right-to-infect-you/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Writing at the Washington Times, Cheryl Chumley</b> <a title="makes the argument" href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/1/forced-face-masking-civil-rights-offense/?utm_source=FreedomWorks&utm_medium=TWTlink&utm_campaign=FWref" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">makes the argument</a> we’re hearing a lot these days from those who are protesting against the measures being used to slow the spread of the coronavirus. She is particularly upset about any requirement for people to wear protective masks.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Major U.S. airlines have <a title="announced" href="https://apnews.com/445ac414e3be792cbcd885b8c1eb2b28" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">announced</a> that as a condition of riding their friendly skies, passengers must all put on a face mask.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Let the muzzling of America commence.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After noting that some state governments are requiring people to wear masks under certain conditions—like working in a restaurant—Chumley writes this.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This seems a blatant violation of an individual’s right to choose — of an individual’s right to self-govern.</b> America, after all, isn’t a nation founded on collectivism, but rather individualism — on the right of individuals to exercise their God-given authorities, absent government tinkering and intrusion. What gives government the authority to order citizens to cover their faces?</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">My immediate reaction was that she could make the same argument against things like speed limits, carrying explosives on airplanes, or even smoking in public places. After all, those laws restrict an individual’s right to self-govern. What gives the government the authority to order citizens to limit how fast they drive?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The answer, of course, is that we have always had laws that put restrictions on individuals to limit the damage their behavior could pose to others. Honestly, the kind of “individualism” Chumley describes is more akin to anarchy than anything our founders envisioned. They actually wrote a kind of collectivism into the Preamble to the Constitution.</font></p><div class="alt_ad_block true_ad_free story-page-in-content-graph-4" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_msg" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 10px; background: rgb(234, 234, 234);"><div class="header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">AD REMOVED FOR SUBSCRIBED USER</div></div></div><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In our modern-day two-party system, the traditional argument has never been that “freedom” gives the individual the right to do anything they please. Instead, it has been to disagree about how far the government should go in intervening for the common good.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the Democratic Convention in 2012, President Barack Obama laid out that tension as he focused on what citizenship means in a democratic republic.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b>We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk- takers, the entrepreneurs who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system, the greatest engine of growth and prosperity that the world’s ever known.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But we also believe in something called citizenship</b> — citizenship, a word at the very heart of our founding, a word at the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations…</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">We, the people — recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights</b><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">; </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b>As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That’s what we believe.</b></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is a reason why Obama focused his speech that year on the importance of citizenship. During a campaign appearance in Roanoke, Virginia, he had <a title="talked about" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKNEQC5YJUQ" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">talked about</a> the fact that economic growth is driven by a dynamic of both individual and collective effort.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b>If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own…somebody along the line gave you some help.</b> There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Republicans, and their presidential nominee Mitt Romney, <a title="zeroed in" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QSIIzbYRdo" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">zeroed in</a> on two sentences: “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” claiming that Obama attacked the very foundation of our free enterprise system. They even went so far as to<a title=" dedicate" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/they-built-that-republicans-big-lie" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"> dedicate</a> a whole day of their convention to a rebuke of those two sentences taken out of context.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This battle between the individual and the collective has been the defining difference between Democrats and Republicans for years. It is important to recognize that when conservatives talk about “freedom” these days, it is most often in the context of freedom from any form of government action or intervention. The claim, as Chumley notes, is that self-government no longer refers to our collective responsibilities as citizens of a democratic republic, but “an individual’s right to self-govern” themselves. That is one of the more dangerous arguments that Attorney General William Barr <a title="made" href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/11/26/why-christian-nationalism-is-a-threat-to-democracy/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">made</a> during his speech at Notre Dame.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the words of Madison, “We have staked our future on the ability of each of us to govern ourselves…”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is really what was meant by “self-government.” It did not mean primarily the mechanics by which we select a representative legislative body. It referred to the capacity of each individual to restrain and govern themselves.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What makes that argument so dangerous is that it wasn’t being made to promote anarchy or even libertarianism. Instead, it is a way to advocate for the idea of “religious liberty,” or the right of conservative Christians to impose their beliefs onto others via government intervention. In other words, it is all about freedom for me, but not thee.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That is precisely why we see the irony of people protesting the coronavirus restrictions <a title="carrying signs" href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4agz9n/my-body-my-choice-doesnt-apply-to-coronavirus-covid19" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">carrying signs</a> that read: “My body, my choice.” These people seem to believe in their freedom to threaten the lives of others during a pandemic, but the government should decide what a woman does with her body.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even more dangerous is the kind of attitude on display with the <b>protester who carried a sign that replicated the one on the gate of Auschwitz, translated “work will set you free.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">What I would observe is that the Republican Party has completely lost touch with concepts like “freedom” and “liberty” in an attempt to deny the collective responsibility of citizenship.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IOU</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/theres-an-insidious-agenda-behind-the-anti-lockdown-protests"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/theres-an-insidious-agenda-behind-the-anti-lockdown-protests</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">520 an</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div> Diana Daly, University of Arizona</div><div>
</div><div>The “anti-lockdown” and #Reopen protests in the U.S. have powerful and secretive backers, but there are real Americans on the streets expressing their opinions.</div><div>
</div><div>As an ethnographer – someone who studies cultural participation – I’m interested in who those Americans are, and why they’re upset.</div><div>
</div><div>I spent the last week in what you might call an online road trip, studying 30 posts of protest footage from events in 15 cities. I found some shared themes, which don’t fit well with popular narratives about these protests.</div><div>
</div><div>Protesters object to handouts, but want work.</div><div>
</div><div>1. Poverty is taboo, but work is ‘essential’</div><div>
</div><div>Despite the economic toll the lockdowns are taking on America’s poor, no protesters put their own poverty on display, such as posting signs asking for help.</div><div>
</div><div>Instead, they held signs with more general language, like “Poverty Kills,” or expressed concerns like the restaurateur in Phoenix, Arizona, who told a passing videographer he was worried about his 121 “suffering, devastated” employees.</div><div>
</div><div>Their messages made clear that they didn’t want to ask for a handout or charity – but they were asking to be allowed to work. Protesters across many states asserted their work – or even all work – was “essential.”</div><div>
</div><div>In one video from an “Operation Gridlock” protest in Lansing, Michigan, where activists planned to block traffic, a protester filmed out the window of his car when he drove past a sign saying “Give me work not money.” The protester himself called out in approval, “Give me work not money, I hear that!”</div><div>
</div><div>A young man at an Olympia, Washington, event described work as a source not only of money but identity: “I wanna go back to work! That pride that you feel every day when you go home from work? That’s like nothing that can … be taken.”</div><div>
</div><div>Protest signs in Denver, Colorado, included the plaintive “I want my career back” and the entrepreneurial “Dogs Need Groomers.”</div><div>
</div><div>2. The threat of the virus is serious</div><div>Despite alarming news reports that protesters were ignoring social distancing, many of the protesters observed safety guidelines. Photos showed at least some people wearing masks. A TikTok video recruiting participants for Michigan’s Operation Gridlock encouraged protesters to be safe; drone footage shows that most participants at the state capitol stayed in their cars, away from other people.</div><div>
</div><div>Protesters’ signs didn’t really downplay the threat of the virus, but rather compared it with potential harm from the lockdown. For instance, a sign in Denver was headed “Trading Lives” and featured a scale with virus deaths on one side, with unemployment, suicide and homelessness on the other.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Protesters in cars are, in general, observing social distancing guidelines.</div><div>
</div><div><b>3. Anti-science displays are on the fringe</b></div><div>There were protesters at several rallies who wore anti-vaccination T-shirts and held signs suggesting they don’t trust public health experts and scientists.</div><div>
</div><div>But only one protest was dominated by that theme. At that one, on April 18 in <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Austin, Texas, hundreds of attendees chanted “Fire Fauci!” referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has been a frequent public face of the federal government’s efforts to fight the virus. That was also the rally where right-wing radio host Alex Jones, who runs a conspiracy-theory website, drove around in a truck egging on attendees’ chants through a megaphone.</span></div><div>
</div><div>At the other events, it appeared protesters had been expecting higher numbers of infections than actually happened. Rather than seeing that as evidence of the success of social distancing, they seemed to interpret this as saying the science was no longer valid. <b>“The models were wrong</b>” was on more than one sign, suggesting protesters had paid attention to the scientific models at first but had come to believe the disease’s seriousness had been exaggerated.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Idahoans rally to fight the outbreak’s effects in ways they have dealt with more familiar problems.</div><div>
</div><div>4. People want to fight the virus in familiar ways</div><div>Even when protesters acknowledged the threat of the virus, few of them were calling for medical experts to provide the solution. I saw none of the demonstrators calling for more widespread testing, for instance.</div><div>
</div><div>When they did express concern, protest signs coupled it with a desire to fight the contagion. In Boise, Idaho, one sign read “Freedom over Fear.” In Denver, one said “Don’t let your mask be your muzzle.”</div><div>
</div><div>However, the protesters wanted to fight the virus in ways that were more familiar to them and, perhaps, more empowering: In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a giant green truck had <b>“Jesus is my vaccine” scrawled on its side.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Some protesters demanded governments allow people to make their own decisions, and even displayed the pro-choice slogan “My Body My Choice.” Others showed up with guns. One man in Frankfort, Kentucky, blew a shofar, a Jewish religious instrument made from a ram’s horn blown at the start of a battle.</div><div>
</div><div><b>5. ‘Tyranny’ depends on who governs, not how</b></div><div>
</div><div>In many of the events across different states, protesters objected to what they called “tyranny,” and held up the Revolution-era “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsden flag to symbolize their resistance to government rules. <b>They were not objecting to President Donald Trump’s April 13 declaration that, as president, his “authority is total” over the nation.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>Instead they were objecting to governors’ lockdown rules, which they highlighted as overreaching their power. Many protesters likened the government’s behavior to Nazis, with protesters adding “Heil” before Democratic governors’ names.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">No male governor was targeted as viciously and overtly as female Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. A widely circulated poster depicted her dressed as Adolf Hitler, giving a Nazi salute beside a swastika. Other demonstrators talked about Whitmer as though she were mothering them instead of governing them, like one who insisted, “We’re not her children!”</span></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Michigan protesters speak out about their concerns.</div><div>6. Race is a factor</div><div>One clearly visible theme in the #Reopen protests is how white the attendees are – but not just in terms of their own race. Their compassion also seemed limited to fellow white people. None that I saw were calling attention to the fact that the coronavirus doesn’t hit all populations equally: Blacks and other racial minorities had less access to high-quality health care before the outbreak, and as a result are less healthy and less able to fight off the virus when it strikes.</div><div>
</div><div>There was overt racism toward the Chinese, too, echoing words of the president and other political leaders, as on the Jefferson City, Missouri, sign that read “Tyranny is spreading faster than the China virus.”</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>There’s potential for a wider movement.</div><div>
</div><div>7. Divided and distanced, is it a movement?</div><div>Most protesters did not refer to these protests as a movement. I found just one video offering a vision that they could form one. In that livestream from Operation Gridlock, at one point the videographer shouted, “‘merica!”</div><div>
</div><div>Then, his unseen companion replied in a meditative tone about the potential he saw on that road: “Together we’re strong, divided we’re weak. That’s the establishment’s biggest fear, for the people to get together and not be divided. … That’s what they fear the most. Because we have the power.” It was not clear if those people with the power included the much greater number of people across America who were sheltered in place.</div><div>
</div><div>[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversation’s newsletter.]The Conversation</div><div>Diana Daly, Assistant Professor of Information, University of Arizona</div><div>
</div><div>This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.</div></div><div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">VP refuse mask</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/a-phantom-plague-evangelical-fundamentalists-who-openly-defied-social-distancing-guidelines-are-dying-of-coronavirus-in-frightening-numbers/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/a-phantom-plague-evangelical-fundamentalists-who-openly-defied-social-distancing-guidelines-are-dying-of-coronavirus-in-frightening-numbers/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">~ stay</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/jysexton?lang=en"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://mobile.twitter.com/jysexton?lang=en</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jared Yates Sexton</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@JYSexton</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hoosier, Political Analyst, Assoc Prof, Prev in NYT, TNR, AMERICAN RULE: HOW A NATION CONQUERED THE WORLD BUT FAILED ITS PEOPLE 9/15</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/the-far-right-wants-to-make-its-shared-fantasy-of-violent-civil-war-a-reality/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/the-far-right-wants-to-make-its-shared-fantasy-of-violent-civil-war-a-reality/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">david n kos</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Age of Conspiracy Theories in which we are now immured has produced a kind of bastard offspring: the Shared Violent Fantasy. Exhibit A is <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/25/1921786/--Boogaloo-civil-war-talk-takes-on-a-life-of-its-own-as-far-right-extremists-coalesce" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the “Boogaloo,”</a> the far-right’s ironic name for <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/2/25/1837424/-The-American-Right-hankers-for-a-civil-war-a-history-in-four-videos" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the long-sought “second civil war”</a> they believe is on the verge of erupting in the United States—and in which the ongoing novel-coronavirus pandemic has become a virtual petri dish for cultivating the fear of societal collapse essential to their worldview.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Like many conspiracy theories, and all such fantasies, the “Boogaloo” has a powerful tendency to produce real-life violence from people who absorb the underlying paranoid values and believe in them fervently</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/boogaloo-boy-arrested-texarkana-swenson" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">A recent incident in Texas</a> in which a self-proclaimed “Boogaloo Boi” set out to murder a police officer in order to help spark the civil war underscores the extent to which the believers are likely eventually to attempt manifesting their fantasies—</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">which can entail violence not just against authorities, but sometimes even their unsuspecting neighbors.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Aaron Swenson is a 36-year-old Texarkana man who frequented “Boogaloo”-related Facebook pages with some frequency, sharing their frequently violent memes and indulging the usual violent rhetoric in the comments. Eventually, he reached a point where he decided to act on it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/boogaloo-facebook-pages-coronavirus-militia-group-extremists_n_5ea3072bc5b6d376358eba98" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The world of “Boogaloo”</a> on social media—particularly on Facebook, where over 125 such pages reside—is riddled with references, both direct and obscure, to their eagerness to begin a civil war by </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b style="">shooting law-enforcement who attempt to enforce gun-control measures,</b> or for that matter any other measures that attract the ire of the far right. Recently, these have come to include COVID-19 lockdown and social-distancing measures.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The universe it occupies resides in a bubble of conspiracy theories and “constitutionalist” fantasies, but with a distinctly alt-right edge</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Irony abounds everywhere:</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">adherents wear</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Hawaiian shirts as a reference to “the boog,” or the “Big Igloo”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (</span><a href="https://www.adl.org/blog/the-boogaloo-extremists-new-slang-term-for-a-coming-civil-war" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the “Boogaloo” flag</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> features an igloo and a palm tree).</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Their memes reference “Pepe the frog,” white-nationalist OK signals, and the common shared belief that nefarious communists are plotting to confiscate their guns and enslave them in concentration camps. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This fantasy is the justification for their announced intention to begin shooting their fellow citizens, especially those who work for the federal government or police.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">On the night of April 11, Aaron Swenson began livestreaming from his pickup truck,</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> telling his audience that he was out hunting a police officer—anyone would do, he wasn’t particular—to shoot and kill, all in order to start the “Boogaloo.” He told them he was seeking a lone cop to “ambush and execute.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">People began calling the Texarkana Police Department, which promptly found the page and figured out both where Swenson was located and what kind of vehicle he was driving. Upon locating him, he fled a squad of police cars at high speed, eventually grinding to a halt well after his tires were flattened by a spike strip. “He was wearing an <b>armored plate carrier type vest when we arrested him, and officers found several loaded weapons inside his truck</b>,” the police department’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/texarkanapolice/posts/2831460176909180?tn=-R" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Facebook post reported</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At his own Facebook account, Swenson liked more than a dozen pages that mention boogaloo in their names, as a report from <a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/extremists-are-using-facebook-to-organize-for-civil-war-amid-coronavirus" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Tech Transparency Project</a> (TTP) on the “Boogaloo” phenomenon described. It also noted that “some users leaving comments on the profile on the night of the attempted attack endorsed the targeting of police officers, while others suggested calling 911 in response to the live broadcast.” The two videos were active on the Facebook page at the time of the report, having amassed over 1,500 and 3,400 views, respectively; however, they have since been removed by Facebook.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Swenson <a href="https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/texarkana/story/2020/apr/13/man-nabbed-after-alleged-threat-kill-police-officer/824101/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">has been charged</a> with making terrorist threats against an officer, evading with a vehicle and illegal possession of a weapon.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He is not the first such “Boogaloo” enthusiast intent on making the shared fantasy into a violent reality. In January, three would-be terrorists from the neo-Nazi organization </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The Base were <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/16/1911985/-FBI-nabs-Canadian-neo-Nazi-reservist-two-others-preparing-for-violence-at-Virginia-Boogaloo" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">arrested by the FBI</a></b>, charged with plotting to wreak havoc with their weapons at a planned anti-gun-control march in Richmond, Virginia, around which <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/16/1911814/-As-the-far-right-prepares-for-a-Boogaloo-Virginia-governor-declares-emergency" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“Boogaloo” rhetoric</a> was already rife.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A few days later, three more “Boogaloo”-loving members of The Base were arrested in Georgia for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/17/us/fbi-alleged-extremist-group-arrests-georgia-virginia/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">plotting to assassinate</a> a local antifascist couple, as well as overthrow the local county government.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/21/1913086/-Not-over-Gun-rally-in-Richmond-was-just-the-first-salvo-in-the-battle-over-what-s-constitutional" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Richmond rally</a>, the “Boogaloo” was a major theme—flags, signs, and social-media posts from the event all referenced and celebrated it—that continued even afterward during the debate in Virginia over its gun-control laws.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And just as <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/23/1930417/-White-nationalists-looking-to-weaponize-coronavirus-pandemic-both-literally-and-figuratively" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the white-nationalist</a>, conspiracist and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkewgv/experts-say-neo-nazi-accelerationists-discuss-taking-advantage-of-coronavirus-crisis" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“accelerationist” right</a> has sought multiple means to exploit the novel-coronavirus pandemic, the “Boogaloo” theme has become a louder topic of discussion on far-right telegram channels.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The lockdown measures instituted by governors around the nation in response to the virus have particularly provided ample evidence for the conspiracists—in their minds, at least—of their long-running contention that “globalists” are seeking ways to enslave the world.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Signs referencing the “Boogaloo” have popped up at a number of the far-right-led protests against the lockdown measures. <a href="https://twitter.com/dburghart/status/1253416727368445952" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">One marcher</a> at the “ReOpen” rally in Topeka, Kansas, on April 23 carried a large black “Big Igloo” flag.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There has also been a certain amount of somewhat <b>predictable crossover between the “Boogaloo” element and the far-right conspiracists of the Trump-loving QAnon</b> world, some of whom have also been <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/3/1933811/-Coronavirus-conspiracy-theorists-are-too-nuts-even-for-a-zombie-apocalypse-movie-scenario" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">acting out violently</a> during the pandemic—notably the locomotive engineer who attempted to ram the USNS Mercy with a train engine.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to <a href="https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/qanon-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-travis-view-interview" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">QAnon expert Travis View</a>, the “Boogaloo” has become the preferred fallback position for people swept up in “The Storm” theories, believing that one day soon there will be mass arrests of leading liberal and media figures for their roles in a global child-trafficking ring, and increasingly disappointed at its failure to materialize.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“If that change doesn’t come, some of the followers have made reference to what they call Plan Z,” View says. “If the whole Q operation fails, then Plan Z is sort of equivalent to what the far-right extremists call the ‘Boogaloo.’ Which is civil war, basically.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened the interest in a civil war. The TTP report found that most of the 125 Facebook groups devoted to the “boogaloo”—some 60%—were created in the very recent past (within three months), just as the states began declaring lockdowns and social-distancing measures. Perhaps more worryingly, “they have attracted tens of thousands of members in the last 30 days.”</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In several private boogaloo Facebook groups that TTP was able to access, members discussed tactical strategies, combat medicine, and various types of weapons, including how to develop explosives and the merits of using flame throwers. Some members appeared to take inspiration from President Donald Trump’s recent tweets calling on people to “liberate” states where governors have imposed stay-at-home orders.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite these findings, TTP notes, Facebook has been slow to remove these pages. One of the most prominent—Thicc Boog Line, which specializes in selling branded “Boogaloo”-themed gear and clothing—attracts thousands of readers. It has recently been pitching messages to its readers emphasizing the opportunity to wreak <b>“boojahideen”</b> havoc during the time of a pandemic.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">These findings resonate with </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/25/1921786/--Boogaloo-civil-war-talk-takes-on-a-life-of-its-own-as-far-right-extremists-coalesce" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a similar report</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> issued in February by </span><a href="https://ncri.io/reports/cyber-swarming-memetic-warfare-and-viral-insurgency-how-domestic-militants-organize-on-memes-to-incite-violent-insurrection-and-terror-against-government-and-law-enforcement/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Network Contagion Research Institute,</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> warning that “domestic militants” are organizing around memes to “incite violent insurrection and terror against government and law enforcement.”</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">The boogaloo, a joke for some, acts as a</span><b style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);"> violent meme that circulates instructions for a distributed, viral insurgency for others. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The topic network for boogaloo describes a coherent, multi-component and detailed conspiracy to launch an inevitable, violent, sudden, and apocalyptic war across the homeland.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);"> The conspiracy, replete with suggestions to stockpile ammunition,<b> may itself set the stage for massive real-world violence and sensitize enthusiasts to mobilize in mass for confrontations or charged political events.</b></span></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel E. Stevens, executive director of Campaign for Accountability, the umbrella organization under which TTP operates, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/boogaloo-facebook-pages-coronavirus-militia-group-extremists_n_5ea3072bc5b6d376358eba98" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">told Christopher Mathias of HuffPost</a> in a statement that “<b>Facebook’s failure to stop their platform from being used as an organizing tool for extremists is completely unacceptable.</b>”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“There is nothing subtle about how these extremist groups are using Facebook’s platform to advance their cause,” Stevens said. “Boogaloo proponents are not simply discussing ideas or political views; they are directly advocating for violent action and tactically planning how to defeat government entities.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Boogaloo” enthusiasts indeed have detailed plans for how to achieve their goals, both militarily and through propaganda, as <a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/extremists-are-using-facebook-to-organize-for-civil-war-amid-coronavirus" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the TTP report details</a>. However, government and law enforcement are not the only targets that “Boogaloo” memes discuss. A subcurrent in a number of the violent fantasies that they express in their memes is the idea of committing home-invasion robberies targeting their relatively hapless and untrained neighbors as a means of thriving during the civil war—or a pandemic.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another featured a photo of an angry <b>Joaquin Phoenix in <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Joker </em>with the script:</b> <b>“When you dispatch the normie with ease to raid their stash because they stocked up on TP and not ammunition”—with a subscript across the bottom reading: “You get what you fucking deserve</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>.</b>”One popular meme among Facebook “Boogaloo” followers was one that showed a SWAT-style armed raid team in military gear massing outside a door, with the script: “Me and my boys going for a grocery run at my asshole neighbor’s house.” Another features a grid of graphics demonstrating military hand signals during a raid, all of which are interpreted in the language of a home invasion: “Shoot that dog.” “Cover up the evidence.” “I found cocaine. It’s pretty good.” “Wrong house. Let’s boogie!”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">These ideas are not particularly new among the more openly cynical participants in far-right conspiracism and survivalism. Indeed, they were openly elucidated back in 2014 by a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/01/21/doomsday-prepper-arrested-gun-charges-washington-state" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“Patriot” movement survivalist named Tyler Smith</a>, who was featured on an episode of National Geographic’s TV series <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Doomsday Preppers </em>boasting about his plans to invade the homes of his neighbors—particularly those who might also be preppers, since they would make better targets.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of the more commonly shared of these memes</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> actually makes fun of other “preppers,” particularly those who are suddenly new to the business amid the pandemic. It shows a “Virgin Prepper” who is “always scared, can’t sleep at night,” and “has no fun,” then contrasts him with an obviously fun-loving “Chad Raider” who “Takes your good shit and burns all the rest so no one else can have it,” and is seen holding up a bag marked “All Your Shit.” He’s also “not scared of death or coronavirus.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”[vid]</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’re not in it to stockpile,” he proclaimed in a segment that was used to promote the show. “We’re in it to take what you have, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us. We are your worst nightmare, and we are coming.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He told the show’s producers that he only had a few months’ supplies for his family because he intended to aggressively assault his neighbors and steal their food and weapons caches.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“All your shiny ARs, your high-powered .308 rifles, your 50,000 rounds of ammo, are all going to be ours,” he said on the show.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/01/21/doomsday-prepper-arrested-gun-charges-washington-state" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Smith was arrested</a> by the sheriff of Pierce County, Washington, where he resided at the time, shortly after his appearance on national TV, because he wielded multiple guns on camera in the segment, and he was already a <b>felon (on a sexual-behavior-with-a-minor charge) forbidden from owning weapons</b>. He spent a couple more years in prison for that, but was back on the streets by late 2016.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He was most recently spotted marching in <b>Portland with Patriot Prayer—</b>the far-right street-brawling group led by Joey Gibson of Vancouver, Washington—at one of its 2017 demonstrations. Gibson, as it happens, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/far-right-coronavirus-protests-restrictions" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">has been active</a> in the anti-coronavirus-lockdown protests, traveling to Seattle and Olympia for protests.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.adl.org/blog/extremists-involved-in-nationwide-protests-against-coronavirus-restrictions" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Those protests</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, of course</span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/21/1939036/-Anti-lockdown-protesters-are-just-the-authoritarian-footsoldiers-Trump-ordered" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">, featured plenty of “Patriots”</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> wearing Hawaiian shirts underneath their body armor—a signal for what the “boojahideen” like to call “the Big Luau.” The chief organizer of the “Boogaloo” motif in Olympia was Matt Marshall, the leader of the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">III Percent of Washington, a “Patriot” militia group</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> based in Eatonville,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Washington, and <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/11/1910065/-Far-right-Patriots-lining-up-to-defend-Matt-Shea-their-man-in-the-Washington-Legislature" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a close ally of both Gibson</a> and <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/21/1880476/-Unfit-for-office-Spokane-area-officials-want-Matt-Shea-removed-from-his-legislative-seat" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">state Rep. Matt Shea</a>, the far-right legislator whose plan for a post-breakdown society called for the execution of all non-believers.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These violent fantasies keep mounting in number and vehemence. The question increasingly is what spark will inspire them to attempt to make them manifest.</font></p><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/across-country-right-wing-talk-radio-hosts-promote-local-protests-against-stay">https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/across-country-right-wing-talk-radio-hosts-promote-local-protests-against-stay</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma 420</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/facebook-says-it-removed-events-violating-stay-home-orders-it-hasnt-removed">https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/facebook-says-it-removed-events-violating-stay-home-orders-it-hasnt-removed</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-aggressive-promotion-protests-against-social-distancing-mirrors-its-tea-party"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-aggressive-promotion-protests-against-social-distancing-mirrors-its-tea-party</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">many lnx vid</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> MATT GERTZ</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>PUBLISHED 04/21/20 </div><div>
</div><div><b>Fox News is aggressively promoting protests by right-wing activists calling for the removal of social distancing measures that states have instituted to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak. </b></div><div>
</div><div>Experts warn that if protesters succeed in forcing an economic reopening before the virus is under control, it will trigger a second wave of COVID-19 deaths while failing to revive employment. But that hasn’t stopped Fox hosts from encouraging the activists and spreading their message to millions of viewers -- the same playbook the network deployed in 2009 to bolster the tea party movement’s protests against the Obama administration.</div><div>
</div><div>These new protests share “the same DNA” as the tea party movement, according to leaders of groups that supported it. But for the anti-social distancing activists to have the same political success as their predecessors, they need a helping hand from Fox to validate their efforts and swell their ranks. So far, they are getting it.</div><div>
</div><div>Indeed, Fox’s coverage of the demonstrations at times resembles a shot-by-shot remake of its tea party programming from a decade ago.</div><div>
</div><div>Fox's tea party promotion was a key point in its evolution from right-wing media outlet to GOP political organization. Its support for the social distancing protests shows the logical endpoint of that worldview. The network is risking the lives of its viewers and the broader public health for the political benefit of President Donald Trump, who has pushed for a hasty reopening of the economy.</div><div>
</div><div><b>How Fox helped create the tea party movement in 2009</b></div><div>
</div><div>Following President Barack Obama’s election in November 2008, Fox transitioned from its longtime role as a megaphone for conservative misinformation and conspiracy theories to a new one as an explicitly political actor working to benefit the Republican Party. This was no secret -- top Fox executives referred to the network as “the Alamo” and a “voice of opposition” to the new administration, and the network’s parent company handed over more than $2 million to GOP-linked political groups. </div><div>
</div><div>As part of this shift, Fox hosts began driving their audiences to support anti-Obama protests, beginning with those associated with the tea party. </div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The tea party movement was an effort by conservatives to rebrand after the faltering Iraq War and 2008 financial crisis shattered public confidence in the Republican Party.</b> Wrapping themselves in the mantle of the Revolutionary era, tea party activists organized protests beginning as early as February 2009.</span> Their demonstrations targeted Obama and his efforts to trigger economic recovery, particularly policies that benefited people the tea party activists considered “undeserving.” An array of deep-pocketed national conservative organizations like FreedomWorks and the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity plowed money into the movement, turning it into a significant political player with a major influence on the 2010 elections and the GOP of the era.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Fox played a preeminent role in the movement’s growth.</b> An analysis of the tea party’s membership and emergence as a political force by Harvard University scholars describes Fox not only as a key information source for tea partiers, but also as a “national social movement organization” that spurred viewers to join it. The network, they write, thus “helped to create and sustain the Tea Party mobilization in the first place.”</div><div>
</div><div>Fox heavily promoted the tea party in the days leading up to its high-profile Tax Day demonstrations on April 15, 2009, airing numerous reports, frequent interviews with tea party activists, and dozens of promos.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>The network’s hosts and anchors didn’t simply cover the story as a news event; they also encouraged viewers to participate, providing attendance and organizing information during on-air segments and directing their audience to a list of upcoming protests posted on Fox websites. </div><div>
</div><div>Fox personalities participated in more than a dozen events, including four Fox hosts who aired their April 15 shows live from what the network billed as “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” </div><div>
</div><div>FNC TAX DAY TEA PARTIES</div><div>
</div><div>This was not subtle -- then-host Glenn Beck promoted the network’s live shows from the demonstrations by urging his viewers to “celebrate with Fox News.”</div><div>
</div><div>The effort succeeded. Dozens of national and local news reports detailed the role Fox played in amplifying the movement, with numerous tea party attendees telling journalists that they had come out to the demonstrations because they heard about them on the network. </div><div>
</div><div><b>“I don't think I've ever seen a news network throw its weight behind a protest like we are seeing in the past few weeks with Fox and these tea parties,” said media critic Howard Kurtz, then at CNN (he joined Fox four years later). </b></div><div>
</div><div>Fox’s tea party promotion didn’t stop on 2009’s Tax Day. Whenever the movement generated new rallies over the following years, Fox was there to provide them with the promotion they needed to succeed.</div><div>
</div><div>As one tea party leader put it, “There would not have been a tea party without Fox.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>Fox is now championing protests against social distancing</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">More than a decade later, we may be seeing history repeat itself. Fox spent the years following Trump’s election merging with his administration, with network hosts doubling as presidential advisers, former Fox personalities filling the White House and federal agencies, and former Trump aides taking top roles with Fox’s corporate parent. The network is utterly devoted to supporting Trump in his every position and utterance -- including the constant failures of his coronavirus response. And now, that devotion to the president has Fox supporting a new movement with potentially dire consequences for public health.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Governors across the country have slowed the spread of the coronavirus by implementing a wide range of orders to limit face-to-face contact, including banning large gatherings, closing many businesses, and requiring residents to shelter in place. That strategy has drastically reduced the projected death toll from COVID-19, even as tens of thousands have been killed. But as Americans have receded from public spaces, the resulting economic decline has triggered widespread unemployment -- and a backlash from conservatives.</div><div>
</div><div>President Donald Trump, his political allies, and Fox hosts have been pushing for a swift end to the lockdowns. And now conservative activists have begun launching protests calling for the repeal of social distancing measures, with attendees often wearing “Make America Great Again” caps or otherwise indicating their support for the president. </div><div>
</div><div>This is currently a fringe view, with polls showing that the vast majority of Americans are more concerned that governments will lift restrictions too quickly rather than too slowly. </div><div>
</div><div>But the protests are nonetheless spreading across the country, thanks in part to the same elements that fueled the tea party -- support from national conservative organizations, Republican politicians, and Fox, which has gone into overdrive to promote the demonstrations.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Fox ran 91 segments on the protests from April 13 to April 20, and spent 6 hours of time covering the story, according to a Media Matters study. That coverage includes seven interviews with protest organizers and four more with sheriffs who say they will refuse to enforce stay-at-home orders.</div><div>
</div><div>As it did with the tea party, the network isn’t just covering these protests as newsworthy events -- it is actively encouraging its viewers to support and even join them.</div><div>
</div><div>Fox segments have advertised upcoming protests in on-screen graphics.</div><div>
</div><div>Video file</div><div>
</div><div>CitationFrom the April 18, 2020, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Saturday</div><div>
</div><div>The network’s hosts are lavishing the protesters with praise and thanking the organizers for what they are doing. </div><div>
</div><div>They are dishonestly slamming Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a main target of the protesters, for criticizing the demonstrations.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>And they are playing down the extremism of some rallygoers, featuring Infowars conspiracy theorists Alex Jones and Owen Shroyer in b-roll footage of the events<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> without identifying them.</span></b></div><div>
</div><div>If the reaction of the network’s most devoted viewer is any guide, the coverage is having an impact on its audience. In a series of apparent live tweets, Trump himself endorsed the protests on Friday just minutes after Fox aired a segment on them with a flurry of apparent live tweets.</div><div>
</div><div>The anti-social distancing protests are still in their early stages, and we don’t yet know if Fox will be as successful in empowering them as it was for the tea party. But Dr. Anthony Fauci offered a dire warning of what might happen if the demonstrators get their way and force a premature end to the measures. </div><div>
</div><div>“Unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen, so what you do if you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you're going to set yourself back,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said on ABC News. “So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it's going to backfire. That's the problem.” </div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma? 420 fox boosterism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx5sK4uPKp8&t=1s"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx5sK4uPKp8&t=1s</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">vid</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">420 mma</font></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" class="yiv3201549088stylingblock-content-wrapper" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td class="yiv3201549088stylingblock-content-margin-cell" style="border-collapse: collapse; padding: 0px 10px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" class="yiv3201549088stylingblock-content-wrapper" style="background-color: transparent; min-width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td class="yiv3201549088stylingblock-content-wrapper yiv3201549088camarker-inner" style="border-collapse: collapse; padding: 0px;"><h2 style="line-height: 1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=6052e6d64a51140b2931faa33653aec73a1be62fa60514cff6ed19e08f62ca947925861d4bd5cc5c8c24668a20d9bc4076bf883abf69cf50" title="Nightly news broadcasts covered protests against social distancing. They mostly ignored nurses protesting lack of PPE." style="">Nightly news broadcasts covered protests against social distancing. They mostly ignored nurses protesting lack of PPE.</a></font></h2></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" class="yiv3201549088stylingblock-content-wrapper" style="min-width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td class="yiv3201549088stylingblock-content-wrapper yiv3201549088camarker-inner" style="border-collapse: collapse; padding: 0px 10px;"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" /><div style="line-height: 31px;"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news programs have frequently covered the right-wing protests against social distancing measures without giving necessary context from health experts that it would risk a resurgence of coronavirus infections. By contrast, the shows <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=6052e6d64a51140bb02a083f0ec8c835f3f243c62b577e67f7219bad8390410e7c4414700c50a62810a2e8b8799c9ee7f9fcb2eec2aedde9" title="all but ignored" style="">all but ignored</a> a Tuesday protest at the White House by a major nurses union over the lack of protective personal equipment (PPE) that has put health care workers at risk.</font></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HNN</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="article-info" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/21/far-right-distrust-quarantine/" target="blank" style="outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s;">Washington Post</a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span class="article-info" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">4/21/2020</span><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><h1 class="no-uc" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 30px; letter-spacing: 0.05em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4">The Far Right Hates Liberals, Government and the Media — And Now, Quarantines</font></h1><a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/category/25" style="outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Roundup</a><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">tags: </span><a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/tag/248" target="blank" style="outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">conservatism</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/tag/6266" target="blank" style="outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">populism</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/tag/10813" target="blank" style="outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Protest</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/tag/13460" target="blank" style="outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">far-right</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/tag/14776" target="blank" style="outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">coronavirus</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span class="byline" style="font-weight: 700; display: block; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">by Timothy J. Lombardo</span><p id="author-bio" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Timothy J. Lombardo is an assistant professor of history at the University of South Alabama and the author of "Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia and Populist Politics."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div id="bodycopy" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 26.88px; padding: 0em 2.5em;">...</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 26.88px; padding: 0em 2.5em;">Behind these protests is an underlying rage at elites, liberals, government and the media that is part of a half-century tradition of right-wing populism.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 26.88px; padding: 0em 2.5em;">It started a long time ago, but nothing stoked right-wing populist anger like the mid-20th century battles about desegregation. In the North and West as much in the South, and in rural areas as much as in cities, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/white-rage-9781632864123/" style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s;">white rage</a> followed everywhere that civil rights activists, court decisions or new legislation threatened the status quo of racial segregation. Images of <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/little-rock-nine" style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s;">snarling white students</a> confronting the Little Rock Nine,<a href="https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/1cd299e6-7e1a-11e7-92bb-bf5ca2295519.html" style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s;"> rioting suburbanites</a> in Levittown, Pa., and violent <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/04/04/a-flag-a-busing-fight-and-a-famous-photograph" style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s;">antibusing demonstrations </a>in Boston became touchstones for an entire era of segregationist resistance and lingering symbols of the rage that underpinned efforts to maintain the nation’s racial caste system.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 26.88px; padding: 0em 2.5em;">There was no shortage of populist firebrands who stoked this anger, but no one capitalized on “<a href="https://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-politics-of-rage/" style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s;">the politics of rage</a>” quite like then-presidential candidate and Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who became notorious for promising “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” and made a career out of tapping into the anxieties and frustrations of the white electorate.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 26.88px; padding: 0em 2.5em;">When he lambasted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as “fraud, a shame, and a hoax” in a now-famous speech, he not only attacked the Johnson administration’s signature piece of civil rights legislation but accused the federal government of tyranny for trying to enforce desegregation. Wallace’s sentiments were far from a regional phenomenon, and he swept predominantly white precincts in blue-collar areas of Indiana, Wisconsin and Maryland when he challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 Democratic primary.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 26.88px; padding: 0em 2.5em;">But Wallace found a litany of new targets during his third-party run for president in 1968, including anti-Vietnam War protesters, disruptive student activists, and “pointy-headed intellectuals.” That grievance against intellectuals and elites, not unlike his one against a tyrannical federal government, created a long-standing enemy for the populist right who think that intellectuals and elites forced unwanted new ideas that challenged society’s traditional foundations....</p></div></span></span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opinion/coronavirus-protests-astroturf.html</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
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</div><div><b>Opinion</b></div><div><b>Who’s Behind the ‘Reopen’ Protests?</b></div><div>They are anything but spontaneous.</div><div>
</div><div><b>By Lisa Graves</b></div><div>Ms. Graves is the executive director of True North Research and curator of KochDocs.</div><div>
</div><div>April 22, 2020</div><div>
</div><div>A protest against Michigan’s stay-at-home order outside the State Capitol last week.</div><div>]</div><div>I first became aware of the political influence of Charles and David Koch in 2009 when I started looking into who was behind the protests at health care town halls.</div><div>
</div><div>The Tea Party, formed after America elected its first black president, used a series of health care town halls to spur angry Republicans to oppose the Affordable Care Act as a socialist takeover of American medicine. Little matter that it was modeled on a plan devised by Mitt Romney, a Republican, when he was the governor of Massachusetts.</div><div>
</div><div>Such false claims about the act have not aged well, as millions of Americans now depend on the law for health care coverage as the coronavirus contagion sweeps across the nation. And yet a Tea Party co-founder, Mark Meckler, is using the same tactics and same phony claims to stir his followers to protest against governors seeking to mitigate the Covid-19 death toll by closing businesses and banning public gatherings.</div><div>
</div><div>That public anger is both real and manufactured. The same was true in 2009, when the Koch fortune fueled the Tea Party’s attacks on the Obama administration’s health care law.</div><div>
</div><div>Still, the legend that the Tea Party was a spontaneous uprising took hold and continues to be peddled. As we face Tea Party 2.0, let’s not be fooled again.</div><div>
</div><div>The protests playing out now have the same feel as the Tea Party protests aided by Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity and others a decade ago — and with good reason: Early evidence suggests they are not organic but a brush fire being stoked by some of the same people and money that built the Tea Party.</div><div>
</div><div>Look no further than the first protest organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund — whose chairman manages the vast financial investments of Dick and Betsy DeVos, the Education Secretary — to see that the campaign to “open” America flows from the superrich and their front groups.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Stephen Moore — a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Koch ally and a Trump adviser — admitted as much in a video I obtained comparing these new protesters to Rosa Parks, as first reported in The Times.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Moore, who is now leading an enterprise to end the virus precautions called Save Our Country, which includes the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council, boasted that he has been working behind the scenes with a conservative donor who agreed to cover bail and legal fees for demonstrators who get arrested for defying Wisconsin’s virus protective measures.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Others are providing legal assistance as well. The Times reports that a private Facebook group called Reopen NC has retained the legal services of Michael Best & Friedrich, a Wisconsin law firm whose clients include President Trump. The firm is well known for its work with dark-money groups that fought the recall of the Koch ally Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and waged war on unions.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Then there’s the Convention of States, established in 2015 with a big contribution from the conservative hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. The group recruits activists at gun shows to support a balanced-budget amendment and is promoting the protests online via “Open the States.” COS is an offshoot of Citizens for Self-Governance, which Mr. Meckler co-founded with a longtime Koch operative, Eric O’Keefe.</span></div><div>
</div><div>To give you a flavor of what’s unfolding to help orchestrate these events, this week one of Mr. Meckler’s organizers told supporters via Facebook that “optics are everything” and that they should be sure to wear a mask to the protests and stand six feet apart — because it will make the crowds look bigger.</div><div>
</div><div>COS and a Koch-financed public relations firm, In Pursuit Of, are also purchasing domain names tied to protests to open the states, suggesting they are investing for a long battle — even as the death toll rises.</div><div>
</div><div>The consequences are already starting. One week after a Kentucky protest, the state experienced its largest spike in coronavirus cases. Other states may soon see similar spikes.</div><div>
</div><div>Those fanning these flames, including President Trump and Fox News hosts, are unlikely to get burned by infection themselves, though they may be goading their followers to risk their health by attending mass demonstrations.</div><div>
</div><div>America is now facing three calamities: a deadly contagion, a capricious president and a well-funded right-wing infrastructure willing to devalue human life in pursuit of its political agenda. Some very rich men and women are making this medical disaster worse through their reckless bellows, inflaming people to demand that states open now no matter how many lives that costs.</div><div>
</div><div>Lisa Graves is the executive director of True North Research and curator of KochDocs, and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice.</div><div>
</div><div>The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.</div><div>
</div><div>Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.</div><div>
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</div><div><b>The Quiet Hand of Conservative Groups in the Anti-Lockdown Protests</b></div><div>Groups in a loose coalition have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals and financed lawsuits, polling and research to combat the stay-at-home orders.</div><div>
</div><div>Kenneth P. VogelJim RutenbergLisa Lerer</div><div>
</div><div>By Kenneth P. Vogel, Jim Rutenberg and Lisa Lerer</div><div>April 21, 2020</div><div>
</div><div>WASHINGTON — An informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House, has been quietly working to nurture protests and apply political and legal pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus.</div><div>
</div><div>The groups have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals, dispatched their lawyers to file lawsuits, and paid for polling and research to undercut the arguments behind restrictions that have closed businesses and limited the movement of most Americans.</div><div>
</div><div>Among those fighting the orders are FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots, which played pivotal roles in the beginning of Tea Party protests starting more than a decade ago. Also involved are a law firm led partly by former Trump White House officials, a network of state-based conservative policy groups, and an ad hoc coalition of conservative leaders known as Save Our Country that has advised the White House on strategies for a tiered reopening of the economy.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The effort picked up some influential support on Tuesday, when Attorney General William P. Barr expressed concerns about state-level restrictions potentially infringing on constitutional rights,</b> and suggested that, if that occurred, the Justice Department might weigh in, including by supporting legal challenges by others. Separately, in Wisconsin, Republicans in the state legislature sued to block the Democratic governor’s order extending stay-at-home rules through May 26.</div><div>
</div><div>Those helping orchestrate the fight against restrictions predict the effort could energize the right in the same way the Tea Party movement did in 2009 and 2010, and potentially be helpful to President Trump as he campaigns for re-election. But the cause has yet to demonstrate that kind of traction.</div><div>
</div><div>Polls show a majority of Americans are more concerned about reopening the country too quickly than they are about the damage to the economy. And coronavirus protests have drawn smaller crowds ranging from a few dozen to several thousand at a rally in Michigan last week.</div><div>
</div><div>Conditions are hardly ideal for a protest movement related to the virus. In addition to the health risks, demonstrators potentially face legal exposure for violating the very measures they are protesting. Plus, some key Republican leaders have embraced the types of restrictions being targeted, while powerful grass-roots mobilizing groups, including those spearheaded by the billionaire activist Charles Koch, have so far not embraced the protests.</div><div>
</div><div>Still, the fight has emerged as a galvanizing cause for a vocal element of Mr. Trump’s base and others on the political right. Organizers see it as unifying social conservatives, who view the orders as targeting religious groups; fiscal conservatives who chafe at the economic devastation wrought by the restrictions on businesses; and civil libertarians who contend that the restrictions infringe on constitutional rights.</div><div>
</div><div>“Groups are united in purpose on this,” said Noah Wall, advocacy director for FreedomWorks, which in 2009 organized a Tea Party protest that drew tens of thousands of people or more to Washington. He described the current efforts as appealing to a “much broader” group. “This is about people who want to get back to work and leave their homes,” he said.</div><div>
</div><div>More than 10 protests are planned for this week, Mr. Wall said, adding that elected officials “are going to see a lot of angry activists, and I think that could change minds.”</div><div>
</div><div>The protests mostly appear to have been organized by local residents, and are framed primarily as pushback against what they view as government overreach. But some rallies have prominently featured iconography boosting Mr. Trump and Republicans and denouncing Democrats, as well the occasional Confederate flag and signs promoting conspiracy theories.</div><div>
</div><div>As was the case with the Tea Party movement, established national groups that generally align with the Republican Party have sought to fuel the protests, harnessing their energy in a manner that can increase their profiles and build their membership base and donor rolls.</div><div>
</div><div>Nonprofit groups including FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots have used their social media accounts and text and email lists to spread the word about protests across the country.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Most of FreedomWorks’s 40 employees are working remotely on the effort, helping to connect local protesters and set up websites for them</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The group is considering paid digital advertising to further increase turnout, and has been conducting weekly tracking polls in swing suburban districts that it says show support for reopening parts of country. It is sharing the data with advisers on the president’s economic task force and other conservative allies on Capitol Hill.</span></div><div>
</div><div>While social media has been a key platform for organizing the protests, those efforts have drawn scrutiny. Facebook removed some posts devoted to the protests on Monday for encouraging violations of social distancing laws. And similarities in online organizing efforts behind different protests have sparked accusations that they are not, in fact, organic grass-roots campaigns, but “astroturfing” efforts that are manipulated by Washington conservatives to appear locally driven.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Organizers of recent protests in Oklahoma acknowledged that FreedomWorks helped arrange the events and said they hoped the “rolling protests</b>,” which were intended to keep people in their vehicles, helped Mr. Trump politically. But they stressed that the events reflected real concerns from real people about the economic damage inflicted by mitigation measures.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Carol Hefner, an Oklahoma co-chair of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign who helped organize a protest last week in Oklahoma City, cited the state’s flat terrain as a factor in any decision to ease restrictions. “We have a lot of wind and the wind has pretty much helped us here,” she said. “We are in a much better position than many of the other states to go ahead and open back up.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Ronda Vuillemont-Smith, an Oklahoma HVAC contractor who helped with the capital rally and another one on Monday in Tulsa, said she encouraged protesters to remain in their vehicles. But Ms. Vuillemont-Smith, who serves on FreedomWorks’s activist advisory council, added, “I see absolutely no risks whatsoever” for open-air protests. “We are adults. We assume personal responsibility for the decisions that we make,” she said.</div><div>
</div><div>The Oklahoma organizers and Mr. Wall, as well as the White House and the Trump campaign, said there was no coordination between the protests and Mr. Trump’s team.</div><div>
</div><div>But the protests coincide with messages from Mr. Trump, and have been helped and organized by his supporters, some of whom have begun new ventures to advance the cause.</div><div>
</div><div>One of them is Reopen America Political Action Committee, which aims to bring small business owners to Washington to lobby lawmakers to reopen, starting with a 24-hour rally at the White House on May 1 — the target Mr. Trump set for reopening.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The group, which was created this month, has yet to report any financial activity. But its founder, Suzzanne Monk, who is active on Twitter with the handle @Trumpertarian, called the idea for the rally “pushback against these governors who want to stay shut down far beyond their economic capacity to do so.”</b></div><div>
</div><div>Support for the protests features more direct ties to the White House than simply support for Mr. Trump. The administration recently formed an advisory group for reopening the economy that included<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Stephen Moore, the conservative economics commentator. Mr. Moore had been coordinating with FreedomWorks, the Tea Party Patriots and the American Legislative Exchange Council in a coalition called “Save Our Country,” which was formed to push for a quicker easing of restrictions.</span></div><div>
</div><div>At the same time, Mr. Moore was communicating with a group of local activists in Wisconsin involved in organizing a protest at the State Capitol set for Friday. On a conservative YouTube program that went online the day Mr. Trump named him to the task force, Mr. Moore said he had “one big donor in Wisconsin” who had pledged financial support for the protesters, telling him, “‘Steve, I promise, I will pay the bail and legal fees of anyone who gets arrested.’”</div><div>
</div><div>In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Moore declined to identify the donor, but said, “I do think you’re going to see these start to erupt.”</div><div>
</div><div>He said he would probably turn down an invitation to speak at the protest in Wisconsin, because “it’s important that no one be under the impression that it’s sponsored or directed by national groups in Washington.”</div><div>
</div><div>A legal offensive against the restrictions is also being waged by groups and individuals supportive of Mr. Trump.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Mr. Barr’s comments on Tuesday came a few days after a letter sent by groups including FreedomWorks, Tea Party Patriots and the anti-abortion-rights group Susan B. Anthony List urging the Justice Department to consider intervening to block restrictions that the officials said were unconstitutional infringements on civil liberties.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Lawyers aligned with socially conservative causes have filed their own lawsuits against governors.</div><div>
</div><div>Many are focused on allowing smaller churches to keep holding services, but the objections cover a range of other activities. In Michigan, a lawsuit is challenging provisions of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive order banning travel to vacation homes and gatherings of non-household members.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A law firm that advises the Trump Organization, Michael Best & Friedrich, is representing members of a new protest group in North Carolina called ReOpenNC. Michael Best’s ranks include the former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus, the former deputy White House counsel Stefan C. Passantino and the current senior counsel at the Trump campaign, Justin Clark.</span></div><div>
</div><div>ReOpenNC had told its members that a “generous donor” had arranged to pay for buses to bring protesters to Raleigh from around the state. But, in a sign of how loath the groups are to be viewed as “astroturf” creations, the group said it had scrapped the plan when a news station, WRAL, asked about it. (Afterward, a former defense contractor and perennial North Carolina political candidate, Tim D’Annunzio, stepped forward on Facebook to say he was the donor and was still hoping to run the buses.)</div><div>
</div><div>On Friday, Anthony J. Biller, a Raleigh-based lawyer with Michael Best, wrote to Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, on behalf of a ReOpenNC co-founder, Kristen Elizabeth, and a member who was arrested at a protest last week, seeking dismissal of the charges. In an interview, Mr. Biller said he hoped the state would agree to allow ReOpenNC to demonstrate safely without fear of arrest, adding, “What is sufficient safety to buy toilet paper at Costco should be sufficient safety to practice one’s fundamental rights, particularly about these issues.”</div><div>
</div><div>He said that he was working pro bono but that there was “no coordination with the Trump administration, as some bozos have implied.”</div><div>
</div><div>One force in conservative politics that has kept its distance from the stay-at-home protests is the network of groups backed by the <b>billionaire Mr. Koch.</b> The largest Koch-backed group, Americans for Prosperity, which played a leading role in facilitating the Tea Party movement, has remained on the sidelines of the coronavirus protests.</div><div>
</div><div><b>GoDaddy records show that a public relations firm tied to the Koch network, In Pursuit Of LLC, registered the domain name “reopenmississippi.com.</b>” An official said the group had planned to use the site to highlight a nuanced approach being developed by the network to reopen the economy while balancing health concerns.</div><div>
</div><div>“The question is — what is the best way to get people back to work?” said Emily Seidel, the chief executive of Americans for Prosperity. “We don’t see protests as the best way to do that,” she said, adding that “the choice between full shutdown and immediately opening everything is a false choice.”</div><div>
</div><div>Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.</div><div>
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</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cf the conv</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/inside-the-fake-grassroots-tactics-boosting-the-rights-reopen-protest-movement/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/inside-the-fake-grassroots-tactics-boosting-the-rights-reopen-protest-movement/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref scol</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0003122417690325"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0003122417690325</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Demonstrating Power: How Protest Persuades Political Representatives</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ruud Wouters</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ruud Wouters</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">University of Antwerp</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See all articles by this author</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Search Google Scholar for this author</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">, Stefaan WalgraveFirst Published March 30, 2017 Research Article</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122417690325</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Article information </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Article has an altmetric score of 307 No Access</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Abstract</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How do public opinion signals affect political representatives’ opinion formation? To date, we have only limited knowledge about this essential representative process. In this article, we theorize and examine the signaling strength of one type of societal signal: protest. We do so by means of an innovative experiment conducted among Belgian national and regional politicians. Elected officials were exposed to manipulated television news items covering a protest demonstration. Following Tilly’s previously untested WUNC claim, four features of the event were manipulated: the demonstrators’ worthiness, unity, numerical strength, and commitment. We argue that these protest features present elected officials with useful cues about what (a segment of) the public wants. We find that these cues affect elected officials’ beliefs. The salience they attach to the protest issue, the position they take, and their intended actions all change as a consequence of exposure. The size of a protest event (numbers) and whether the protesters agree among themselves (unity) are the most persuasive protest factors. The effects of the protest signals come on top of strong receiver effects. We find no evidence that elected officials’ predispositions moderate the effects of the protest features.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dorr bros grift</font></div><div><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/conservative-activist-family-behind-grassroots-anti-quarantine-facebook-events-n1188021"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/conservative-activist-family-behind-grassroots-anti-quarantine-facebook-events-n1188021</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/reopen-protests-stir-up-the-far-right"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/reopen-protests-stir-up-the-far-right</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">r<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ight-wing protest events against states’ stay-at-home orders and nonessential business closures have sprouted up across the country, attracting far-right activists who see a friendly avenue for their own extreme messages.</span></font></div><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protesters rallied <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rallies-against-stay-at-home-orders-grow-as-trump-sides-with-protesters/2020/04/17/1405ba54-7f4e-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">in at least six states</a> last week in opposition to measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, including orders to avoid public spaces, cancel social events, and close businesses deemed nonessential. The ”Reopen” events are the manifestation of a push by a <a href="https://apnews.com/57f673f31fb343042e3806b9806e8f7d" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">powerful coalition of right-wing groups</a>, <b>including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and the Heritage Foundation, to advance the reopening of the U.S. economy</b>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Michigan Freedom Fund, a group <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/michigan-protest-whitmer-coronavirus-188579" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">linked</a> to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ family, is <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/coronavirus-quarantine-protests-facebook-groups" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">helping organize</a> the state events on Facebook, and NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/conservative-activist-family-behind-grassroots-anti-quarantine-facebook-events-n1188021" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">found</a> that a family-run network of pro-gun Facebook groups is responsible for some of the largest protest pages.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perhaps unsurprisingly, the protests have received glowing coverage in right-wing media. Fox News has <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/fox-friends-advertises-protests-against-social-distancing" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">advertised the protests</a> while the network’s hosts have spoken <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-promoting-protests-against-social-distancing-measures-god-bless-them" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">favorably</a> about participants. The sudden spark of big-donor groups, state organizing, and right-wing media coverage invokes <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/16/trumps-tea-party-are-right-wing-open-the-country-protests-an-astroturf-operation/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">strong parallels</a> to the astroturf origins of the Tea Party movement.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Minutes after a <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/trump-tweets-praise-right-wing-protests-against-social-distancing-measures" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Fox News segment</a> Friday about the protests, President Donald Trump tweeted, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!,” “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!,” and “<b>LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” All three states are led by Democratic governors.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">[twt]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/trump-s-liberate-tweets-extremists-see-call-arms-n1186561" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> that Trump’s tweets led right-wing extremists online “to speculate whether the president was advocating for armed conflict,” which extremists have spent decades claiming is inevitable in the United States</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. <b>According to NBC News, the Network Contagion Research Institute recorded a major spike in the term “boogaloo,” which is a phrase popular with far-right extremists online to refer to a supposedly inevitable modern civil war.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In Michigan, protests reportedly attracted members of the violent hate groups, anti-government militias, anti-vaccination groups, and religious-right fundamentalists. The Guardian </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">reports</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> GUK that members of the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Michigan Proud Boys hate group participated in a vehicle convoy, and an activist from Michigan Liberty Militia </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">whose Facebook page “features pictures of firearms, warnings of civil war, celebrations of</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Norse paganism and memes ultimately sourced from white nationalist groups like Patriot Front” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">was interviewed by local radio.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">At the Texas state capitol in Austin last weekend, members of the Infowars entourage including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alex-jones-coronavirus-lockdown-protest-texas-anthony-fauci-fire-a9472611.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">reportedly</a> attracted hundreds of protesters for a rally called “You Can’t Close America” organized by Infowars host Owen Shroyer. As Right Wing Watch reported earlier this month, Shroyer had <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/infowars-host-threatens-to-mobilize-audience-to-defy-covid-19-social-distancing-orders/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">threatened</a> to encourage the Infowars audience into “revolting” against social distancing measures if they were not lifted in a week. After protests in Michigan last Wednesday, Shroyer followed through on the promise and announced the Texas rally, which anti-vaccine activists attended.</font></p><figure id="attachment_517849" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-517849" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px auto 1em; max-width: 100%; width: 700px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">
</font><figcaption id="caption-attachment-517849" class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">[A QAnon supporter is seen protesting at an anti-quarantine rally in Olympia, Washington, on April 19, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Troy Schulz)]</font></figcaption></figure><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Colorado Times Recorder <a href="https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/2020/04/proud-boys-anti-vaxxers-and-conspiracy-theorists-among-reopen-colorado-protestors/22827/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> that “anti-vaccination activists, conspiracy theory advocates (including a Q-Anon supporter) and members of the <b>Proud Boys hate group” were present at a “ReOpen Colorado</b>” rally Sunday. Nathan Bernard <a href="https://nathantbernard.substack.com/p/white-nationalist-lawmaker-leads" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> that a “ReOpen Maine” rally Monday was organized in part by a state representative who “is known locally for spreading white nationalist conspiracy theories,” such as the claim that abortion and immigration are part of a plot to eliminate white people.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protesting against stay-at-home orders has become a common cause for those among the far-right ranks. By <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ron-paul-suggested-coronavirus-was-a-big-hoax-then-his-son-caught-it/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">calling COVID-19 a big hoax</a>, asserting that the threat is <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/sandy-rios-on-coronavirus-we-have-been-manipulated-and-played/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">overblown for political reasons</a>,and <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-wiles-says-bill-gates-is-building-lucifers-antichrist-system-by-supporting-vaccine-technology/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">advancing conspiracy theories</a> about the search for a coronavirus vaccine, right-wing activists and media figures have created an environment for these protests to take hold. Meanwhile, unabashed extremists see the “Reopen” protest movement as fertile ground for their agendas–whether it be fomenting a rebellion against the government or <a href="https://www.cleveland19.com/2020/04/20/anti-semitic-sign-seen-during-stay-at-home-protests-ohio-statehouse-elected-officials-react/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">targeting minority groups for hate</a>.</font></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/reopen-protests-stir-up-the-far-right/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/conspiracy-theories/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">conspiracy theories</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/coronavirus/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Coronavirus</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/qanon/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">QAnon</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/americans-for-prosperity/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Americans for Prosperity</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/fox-news-channel/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Fox News Channel</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/freedomworks/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">FreedomWorks</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/heritage-foundation/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Heritage Foundation</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/infowars/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">InfoWars</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/proud-boys/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Proud Boys</a></font></p></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/cnn-host-grills-louisiana-pastor-for-asking-poor-parishioners-to-hand-over-their-stimulus-money-in-fiery-interview/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/cnn-host-grills-louisiana-pastor-for-asking-poor-parishioners-to-hand-over-their-stimulus-money-in-fiery-interview/</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">spell blackwell tony</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LA NO hard hit early covis, many poor POC</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">l<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/louisiana-pastor-who-held-packed-services-during-pandemic-arrested-for-allegedly-threatening-protester-with-church-bus/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline !important;">ouisiana pastor who held packed services during pandemic arrested for allegedly threatening protester with church bus</a></font></p><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/marissa-higgins/" title="Posts by Marissa Higgins" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Marissa Higgins</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/daily-kos/" title="Posts by Daily Kos" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Daily Kos</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pastor Tony Spell has previously been arrested on misdemeanor charges for holding crowded church services in spite of Louisiana’s stay-at-home orders.</font></p></div><p class="print-title"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/it-sure-looks-like-bill-barr-gave-trump-the-absurd-idea-he-has-total-authority-to-force-states-to-reopen/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/it-sure-looks-like-bill-barr-gave-trump-the-absurd-idea-he-has-total-authority-to-force-states-to-reopen/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><span class="caps"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></span></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-adviser-stephen-moore-stay-at-home-protesters-rosa-parks"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-adviser-stephen-moore-stay-at-home-protesters-rosa-parks</font></a></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Summer Concepcion</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">|</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">April 18, 2020 </font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore faces backlash for recently comparing protesters defying stay-at-home orders in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Moore, who is a member of the White House council to reopen the country, told The Washington Post in a Friday night report that the stay-at-home order protesters indicate “a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded” and that he likens them to Park.</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” Moore said.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore was swiftly derided for his remarks shortly after the Post published its report.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill Kristol</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@BillKristol</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Congratulations to Trump adviser Stephen Moore on a comment at once strikingly stupid and deeply offensive. </font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rallies-against-stay-at-home-orders-grow-as-trump-sides-with-protesters/2020/04/17/1405ba54-7f4e-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html …</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ida Bae Wells</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@nhannahjones</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When people like Stephen Moore make comparisons to Ross Parks we should treat it as the cynical, calculated form of race baiting that it is. Enslavers said they were in fact the slaves. Segregationists adopted Civil Rights mvmt language to fight policies to help black people.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8,858</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7:18 AM - Apr 18, 2020</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2,624 people are talking about this</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scott Huffman For Congress</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@HuffmanForNC</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">US House candidate, NC-13</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Could you have imagined the outcome if Rosa brought a gun to the bus?</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">White House adviser Stephen Moore repeatedly compared right-wing protesters who oppose coronavirus safety measures to Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon who fought for racial equality. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stephen-moore-trump-covid-19-rosa-parks_n_5e9a8fa8c5b635d25d6cc480 …</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">COVID-19 Protesters Just Like Rosa Parks, Says White House Adviser Stephen Moore</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The economic pundit repeatedly made the shocking comparison as right-wing protesters railed against social distancing measures meant to save lives.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">huffpost.com</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3,157</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6:29 AM - Apr 18, 2020</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,428 people are talking about this</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jamil Smith</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@JamilSmith</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> · Apr 18, 2020</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @JamilSmith</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some of these people are consciously supremacist: the Proud Boys in Michigan, for instance. But I also point at folks willing to do the work of white supremacy. They may not consider themselves racist, but are willing to set loose a virus disproportionately killing black people.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jamil Smith</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@JamilSmith</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yes, Stephen Moore invoked Rosa Parks to praise those who violate stay-at-home guidelines, advocating for their revocation. Ironic, since the way this virus spreads makes such “protests" violent. (And he is on the White House council to “re-open" the U.S.) https://wapo.st/2VDw1kr </font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rallies against stay-at-home orders grow as Trump sides with protesters</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Groups demonstrated in at least six states this week, with protests planned in four more.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">washingtonpost.com</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Catherine Rampell</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@crampell</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alas, unqualified Trump Fed picks comparing right-wing idiots to Rosa Parks is not at all a new thing, nor unique to Stephen Moore. Here's Judy Shelton, whose nomination is still pending before Senate, comparing a currency counterfeiter to Rosa Parks https://twitter.com/sam_a_bell/status/1131056280364355584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1131056280364355584&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthreadreaderapp.com%2Fthread%2F1146192301062000641.html …</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sam??</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@sam_a_bell</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I called him the Rosa Parks of monetary policy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdlZi2KPXhU&t=46m00s … she's talking about Bernard von NotHaus, guy who made "Liberty Dollars" (gold tokens) http://bernardvonnothaus.org/home/ ... and more recently "Trump dollars" https://www.trumpdollar.us/ </font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>However, Moore’s comments to the Post weren’t the first to invoke Parks when discussing protesters defying stay-at-home orders.</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a video posted to a libertarian think tank’s YouTube page on Tuesday, Moore indicated that he’s assisting an effort to plan a “drive-in” to protest Wisconsin’s stay-at-home orders.</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“They’re going to shut down the Capitol — shh, don’t tell anybody,” Moore said. “We need to be the Rosa Parks here and protest against these government injustices.”</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore then predicted in the video that there will be “a lot more” of the stay-at-home order protests, <b>before arguing that “this is a great time, gentleman and ladies, for civil disobedience.”</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore’s latest remarks aren’t far off from the remarks President Trump made during Friday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing when he argued that Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia have done “too much” with social distancing and that the<b> stay-at-home protesters in those states “seem to be very responsible people.”</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore also told CBS in a Friday interview that the Trump administration should have begun the process to reopen the economy “a week or two ago.”</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think we lean way too much in the direction of keeping the economy shut down to try to save every life, not realizing that we’re causing huge hardship for citizens — again, people at the bottom and businesses — and we’re going to suffer a big loss of living standards because of this,” Moore said.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/meet-the-billionaire-trump-donor-pushing-for-recall-of-wisconsins-governor-over-stay-at-home-order-after-claiming-the-media-is-overblowing-covid-19/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/meet-the-billionaire-trump-donor-pushing-for-recall-of-wisconsins-governor-over-stay-at-home-order-after-claiming-the-media-is-overblowing-covid-19/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meet the billionaire Trump donor pushing for recall of Wisconsin’s governor</span> over stay-at-home order after claiming ‘the media is overblowing COVID-19’</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Alex Henderson April 22, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the business world, supporters of stay-at-home orders and aggressive social distancing have been arguing that ending them prematurely — and causing unnecessary deaths from coronavirus — will ultimately hurt the U.S. economy a lot more than the financial pain that is presently being felt. But one person who doesn’t see it that way is billionaire shipping magnate Liz Uihlein, a major GOP donor and an economic adviser to President Donald Trump. And Bloomberg News reporters Anders Melin and Polly Mosendz, in an April 21 article, describe some of the actions Uihlein is taking politically to discourage social distancing and stay-at-home orders.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Uihlein, Melin and Mosendz report, is supporting a petition to recall Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers for his stay-at-home order.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As protests grip Wisconsin and other states with Democratic governors, the debate is dividing neighbors, politicians and business executives,” the Bloomberg journalists notes. “Big company CEOs — Democrats and Republicans alike — have generally urged caution about reopening because of the health risk, yet some of the GOP’s biggest donors have been pushing hardest on the side of lifting restriction.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Melin and Mosendz observed that although Koch Industries Chairman Charles Koch has “questioned blanket shutdowns…. few have objected more strongly than Liz Uihlein, chief executive officer of closely held Uline.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Uihlein has a history of downplaying the severity of COVID-19.</b> In a March 13 e-mail to Illinois politicians, the Uline CEO asserted, “The media is overblowing COVID-19. At what point do we go back to our normal lives? This has been a huge disruption.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the pandemic that Uihlein believes the media are “overblowing,” according to researchers at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, has killed at least 178,845 people worldwide (as of early Wednesday morning, April 22). And that includes over 45,000 deaths in the United States, which has become the coronavirus epicenter of the world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Uihlein has been criticized for not doing enough to <b>encourage Uline employees to work from home. Melin and Mosendz note that Uline is offering an extra $5 per hour to employees who work on site rather than working from home.</b></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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