April 20th 2020

By Bill Berkowitz

Is it practicable to stage protests during a pandemic? Evidently a coterie of right-wing organizations, militia groups, alt-right entities, and media enterprises think so. Their rallying cry appears to be “the hell with the thousands of deaths caused by the coronavirus pandemic, let’s get America’s economy moving again.” And Donald Trump is standing with the protesters as evidenced by his recent tweets supporting protests in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia.

Radical right-wing organizations are leading the charge in holding mask-less, glove-less and seemingly clue-less protests against sheltering-in-place orders, business closures, and in support of Donald Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. MLive reporter Malachi Barrett highlighted the president’s influence on the rally-goers, calling it “half protest, half Trump rally.” 

According to NPR, in Lansing, Michigan, “[S]everal thousand cars flooded the streets …. around the Capitol building, filling the air with a cacophony of honking …. [with some] people draped in American and ‘Don't Tread on Me’ flags blared ‘We're Not Gonna Take It’ and ‘God Bless The USA’ out of car stereos.” Also visible amongst the crowd were MAGA hat-wearing Trump supporters, carriers of AR-15 and AK-47 variants, confederate flags and Nazi symbols.

And right-wing television hosts – most of whom are broadcasting from their homes -- most notably the prime time crew at Fox News, are vocally supporting the protests, perhaps with visions of a revivified Tea Party dancing in their heads. After several thousand people gathered in the streets of Lansing, Michigan, the state’s capital, Fox News host Laura Ingraham showed video and tweeted: "Time to get your freedom back."

Vanity Fair’s Caleb Ecarma reported that Fox News host “Tucker Carlson hosted Michigan protest organizer Meshawn Maddock and thanked her for her service. ‘Thank you for coming on tonight, and thank you for exercising your constitutionally protected rights as an American. Bless you.” 

“They want to keep us away from churches and synagogues. They want to make sure we don’t go back to work. They don’t get it. The American spirit is too strong, and Americans are not gonna take it,” Fox News host Jeanine Pirro told Sean Hannity. 

Called “Operation Gridlock” -- organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, and the Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to Trump cabinet member Betsy DeVos – the Lansing protests drew out militias, conservatives, small-business owners and ardent supporters of President Trump. For a time, according to reports, protesters blocked streets in front of the state capital…and there was little evidence of social distancing in the crowd.

The protesters are an agglomeration of “street-fighting rightwing groups like the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination groups and other elements of the radical right,” The Guardian’s Jason Wilson recently reported.

Planned demonstrations in Idaho “ha[ve] been heavily promoted by the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF), which counts among its donors ‘dark money’ funds linked to the Koch brothers such as Donors Capital Fund, and Castle Rock, a foundation seeded with part of the fortune of Adolph Coors, the rightwing beer magnate,” Wilson noted. “[O]ne time Republican state senate candidate, Diego Rodriguez launched [a] website at an [in-person] Easter service held in defiance of the governor’s orders on Easter Sunday, which was also addressed by Ammon Bundy, the leader of the militia occupation of the Malheur National wildlife refuge in 2016 that become a rallying point for the anti-government right.”

Demonstrators are also planning actions in Washington state, one of the hardest hit coronavirus pandemic states in the nation.

“The pattern of rightwing not-for-profits promoting public protests while still more radical groups use lockdown resistance as a platform for extreme rightwing causes looks set to continue in events advertised in other states over coming days,” Wilson pointed out.

Vanity Fair’s Caleb Ecarma reported that “Infowars host Owen Shroyer, a conspiracy theorist currently facing a lawsuit for promoting hoax claims about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, has already scheduled an April 18 ‘You Can’t Close America’ rally in Austin, Texas. ‘It’s time for citizens to stand up and take our country back, just like President Trump promised during his inaugural address,’ Shroyer said on Tuesday, downplaying the risk of a mass gathering by telling viewers he was not afraid to catch COVID-19 and ginning them for a revolt. ‘Are we in martial law right now? Because we’re acting like it.’”

Tea Party-style rallies – albeit much smaller – were held in Ohio, Kentucky, North Carolina  and even New York State where the pandemic has been horrific. These rallies may directly contribute to the spread of the coronavirus if demonstrators are not practicing safe social distancing measures, which in Lansing, they did not.

Evidently, even more establishment conservative organizations do not want to forgo the opportunity of charging up Trump voters and are getting involved. According to VF’s Ecarma “Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation economist and Trump’s failed pick for the Federal Reserve board, is slated to lead the effort” to push for starting the economy, “and will be joined by Tea Party Patriots cofounder Jenny Martin, Koch-affiliated American Legislative Exchange Council executive Lisa Nelson, and FreedomWorks president Adam Brandon, per a Washington Post report this week. Moore told the Post that over the next ‘two weeks, you’ll see protests in the streets of conservatives; you’ll see a big pushback against the lockdown in some states.’”

The next few weeks will tell if these street protests by the Right result in the spread of coronavirus among protesters.  A crowd is a crowd whether in an evangelical church or a demonstration. It is entirely likely that this uptick in protest fervor on the Right will lead to fever and illness among the demonstrators.

One thing that is clear: There will be no counter-protesters. Most people are smart enough and prudent enough to take care of themselves and their families.