April 24th 2020

By Bill Berkowitz

Most recently, Donald Trump’s foray as Commander-in-Chief of America’s war on the coronavirus has been to support a flurry of mask-less, glove-less, and social distance-less protests against various state’s stay at home orders. Trump openly encouraged the protesters with a series of tweets aimed at governors of states run by Democrats: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” He also tweeted: “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”

These shout-outs are eerily reminiscent of Trump’s infamous remarks after right-wing thugs invaded Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, when the best Trump had to offer was, "you … had people that were very fine people, on both sides."

There is a troubling, though perhaps predictable, increase in organized public gatherings of pro-Trump supporters, militia members, Tea Party nostalgists, alt-righters of various factions, and Proud Boys, mixing with non-affiliated citizens to protest restrictions meant to contain the coronavirus pandemic. I recently had an email exchange with Devin Burghart, an expert on white nationalist movements. Burghart, president of the Institute the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR) (https://www.irehr.org), provided a political context for these increasingly frequent manifestations.

As Leonard Zeskind, a founder of IREHR, wrote recently, “Today as we all face a new and potent illness and death, white nationalists are targeting Jews and immigrants as they usually do. They argue that people of color, immigrants, Jews, and Muslims are not wanted in the white republic.”

I asked Burghart, who has researched, written, and organized against the rise of white nationalism for nearly thirty years, to help us unpack the larger picture of this current surge in far-right led protests in the midst of the pandemic. We exchanged e-mail just prior to demonstrations scheduled for April 19, the 25th Anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing. Burghart pointed out that there are a number of demonstrations in the planning stage.

“These far-right protests against stay-at-home directives during a pandemic are selfish, ill-informed and dangerous,” Burghart bluntly stated in an e-mail exchange. “These protests are going to get people killed.” 

“This wave of protests, which started with the service organized by Ammon Bundy -- the far-right star made popular for leading armed standoffs in Nevada and Oregon -- has already spread to Nevada, Michigan, Ohio, California, and Virginia. These protests are being organized by a wide swath of the far-right, from racist reactionaries like the Proud Boys, to conspiracy-mongers like InfoWars and Qanon devotees, to far-right paramilitaries in militia and Three Percenter groups, to Trump-supporting America Firsters. 

Burghart believes that right-wing media outlets, especially Fox News, are giving these protests much needed oxygen with which to sustain themselves, and that they “are likely to continue to grow.

He outlined a few possible outcomes:

They will increase pressure on state and local officials to lift stay-at-home orders prematurely, thereby putting more innocent lives at risk with a pandemic flare-up. This particularly puts brave hospital workers, nurses, doctors, and others at far greater risk. 

These protests will further spread the toxic conspiracy theories that have already been widely circulating about the COVID-19 pandemic. I wrote about the militia side of them a few weeks ago in a story titled “Coronavirus and the Militia-Sphere” and my colleague Chuck Tanner wrote about the white nationalist side of them in a story titled “Coronavirus Pandemic, White Nationalist Plague.” A recent Pew poll found that nearly a third of Americans now believe the debunked conspiracy about the origins of the virus. Fueled by these conspiracies, attacks on Asian-Americans and Asian immigrants continues to rise sharply. 

Just as the Tea Party did back in 2009, Stay-at-Home protests have the potential to jumpstart new far-right formations. You have a mélange of far-right groups participating in these protests, as well as newcomers. Particularly in an election year, the energy of that sort of mobilization could have significant political implications. 

Burghart cited a few incidents where conspiracy-addled people have committed dangerous acts, including “a train conductor in California trying to launch his train into a hospital ship to spread the word about those conspiracies.” In Missouri, “a white nationalist was arrested during a plot to blow up a hospital treating COVID-19 patients. The danger is already very real, these protests are pouring jet-fuel onto the fire.”

Although much of the angst, fear and confusion has come from the coronavirus itself and the subsequent mishandling and bungling of the crisis by the Trump administration, “Democrats are not off the hook,” Burghart stated.

“The Democratic Party’s leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer has been woefully inadequate at giving hope or relief to working Americans in this time of crisis. With  22-+ million people unemployed during the pandemic, working-class people are struggling mightily. Many people's lives are at risk from the stress and strain caused by the economic hardship brought about by the virus. It is clear that a $1200 check is not going to provide ‘economic relief overall for about 10 weeks.’ 

“People are scared. People are hurting. People are dying. Unless there is a response to help the American people that is, at least, as big and bold as the response to bail out corporations,  we may be in jeopardy of repeating the same mistakes of the Great Recession. In 2009, that failure led to the rise of the Tea Party and all the harm that movement created. If we don't stand up and provide real hope and real change this time, the consequences may turn out to be even worse.” 

IREHR will be holding a webinar looking at the far-right and the COVID-19 pandemic on Thursday, April 23, at 11am Pacific Time.