Donald Trump wants you to think that the small anti-quarantine protests that took place this weekend in various state capitols were spontaneous grassroots events, but they were anything but.
First of all, Trump’s tweets in support of these protests were all aimed at states with Democratic governors, and ignored Republican governors who also issued stay-at-home orders. So clearly political. And never mind that Trump was inciting people to break laws and guidelines that he himself had endorsed just a couple of days beforehand.
Secondly, the Facebook traffic that coordinated these protests was organized by Ben Dorr (along with his two brothers), who is the political director of Minnesota Gun Rights. And the protests themselves were organized by pro-Trump activists (including some who are surrogates for Trump’s campaign, or are prominent conservative donors.
In fact, the state with the largest and most vehement protests was Michigan, which were organized by Michigan Conservative Coalition, which was founded by a Republican state lawmaker whose wife sits on the advisory board for Trump’s campaign. Also promoting the demonstrations was the Michigan Freedom Fund, which is funded in large part by the DeVos family. Betsy DeVos is Trump’s education secretary, and her husband ran unsuccessfully for governor of Michigan in 2006.
The online activity (mostly on Facebook) was created (and paid for) in order to make it look like opposition to sheltering-in-place is popular and widespread. But this is fake news. Even among Republicans, close to 70% are in favor of a national stay-at-home order. And needless to say, 95% of Democrats are in favor.
So the number of people who demand that the governors “give them liberty or give them death (or both)” is quite small and is being egged on by conservative political activists.
UPDATE: After I wrote this, I found a post from Heather Cox Richardson on the same subject. Definitely worth a read.
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I do not understand, this should be an easy matter to be pressed by media to Trump directly. “Why are you encouraging people to violate the guidelines you gave yourself?”
I saw Pence on “Meet the Press” he bravely recited a script, twice, when pressed on almost the very question Hassan asked. Chuck Todd chuckled, shaking his head, as he moved on to his next guests, the Govs of Mich and Ohio, one from each party.
This is like the third time someone has said “Why didn’t you ask Trump question X“. Hassan, why do you believe Trump or any of his minions are going to actually answer?
Either they are going to attack the person who asked the question, or blame someone else (Democrats, Obama, WHO, etc.), or change the subject, or they are just going to lie (Trump is doing multiple of these things right now about the availability of testing).
In addition, did you see my post where I talked about the fact that Trump has only given interviews to Fox News since early January? Who is going to ask that question?
A couple of things: First, I think the press corps should get together and direct ALL of their questions to ANY of the other people at the podium other than Trump. They would get better answers (even from Pence) and it would shut the dumbass up or at least muzzle him a little. Second, the governors of any state getting the protesters should restrict them to certain (small) areas and let them infect each other. I’ve long felt that the very smart people in our country have invented and instituted things that keep the very dumb people from eliminating themselves (Darwin).
It’s almost as if the GOP, in the person of Donald J. Trump (Impeached, Incompetent & Illegitimate), has asked its “less well-off” supporters to die for the economy, and the morons are not only drinking the Kool-Aid, they are poisoning the water it was made from.
How dangerous is this administration? Its trying to suppress the very people who could help the country and the world recover from this disaster https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/politics/rick-bright-trump-hydroxychloroquine.html