AND THIS YEAR’S DARWIN AWARD GOES TO…..
The backlash against the Covid lockdown is gathering steam, aided and abetted by the usual suspects: Trump, the right-wing media, and leftover Tea Party apparatchiks, who are encouraging their base to go out into the streets to protest the shutdown and push state governors to reopen businesses.
Chanting “Lock her Up” and waving Confederate and Nazi flags, Trump’s base protested Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s closing order in Michigan — and Fox News rushed in to defend the hate
You would think they were trying to thin the herd of their own
supporters. Attendees appear to be a typical MAGA-mix of gun nuts,
anti-vaxxers, sovereign citizens, racist revanchists and neo-nazi Proud
Boy types. In other words, the virus’ favorite target demographic —
stupid old (white) men — is generously represented.
It’s possible
that a few honest souls, sincerely afflicted with (again, white)
economic anxiety, show up at these things, but not many. It seems that
these events are being astro-turfed via FaceBook by experienced
right-wing activists, including the pro-gun Dorr brothers Ben,
Christopher and Aaron.
Let us keep in mind that The Higher Ups aren’t risking exposure. Rush Limbaugh, who has about half-a-lung left from cancer, broadcasts from a location of sterile safety, declaring last Friday that President Trump Kept His Team Together and Led Us to the Reopening of America. RUSH: “I was longing for that day yesterday. I have been longing for the White House briefing to be what it was Thursday for a month.”
And Sean Hannity is no doubt wrapped in protective cotton wool by Fox News.
3 days ago [Apr 17, 2020]
Hannity unveils his plan to re-open New York City:
“At least 50 percent of the workforce should continue working at home,
which will contribute to social distancing on the streets and in the
buildings of New York City.” No doubt he includes himself in the half
that should work from home as his Fox News show is mostly transmitted
from the safety of his house in Centre Island, out on Long Island.
The only one of the “big names” to show up at the demonstration he was instigating/praising was Alex Jones, who led his own Austin, Texas, event in person. But that guy is clinically insane, and has been for years.
The protests are only one example of right-wingers ignoring measures that have been put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and it’s kind of a shame that their leading lights insist on leading from behind – I was hoping for a natural purge of reactionary propagandists in a few weeks. And there would have been, if those guys had the guts to put their feet on the ground at these rallies.
Although my disappointment here pales compared to what I feel when I contemplate the fact that, unlike Boris Johnson, Trump never gets the ‘rona no matter how many hands he shakes, or masks he refuses to wear, or microphones he breathes all over. That’s when I feel that there is no God.
