Far Right Groups, Trump and GOP Behind Social Distancing Backlash

What the far right is trying to pass of as a grassroots, organic uprising against social distancing and stay home orders is actually an orchestrated efforts with some of the organizers comprised of far right white supremacist groups.  Joining in their effort is Donald Trump who is tweeting against states with Democrat governors, including Virginia, and other Republicans who care more about "reopening" the economy than the possible death toll among their constituents.  The ultimate goal behind the actions is politically motivated: to save Trump's reelection effort, especially now that his polling numbers are dropping and some polls show a 60% disapproval rate for his handling of the pandemic.  In Michigan where some of the loudest protests - with armed protesters, of course, as The Guardian reports the organizers were anything but grassroots: 

While protesters in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and other states claim to speak for ordinary citizens, many are also supported by street-fighting rightwing groups like the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination groups and other elements of the radical right.

On Wednesday in Lansing, Michigan, a protest put together by two Republican-connected not-for-profits was explicitly devised to cause gridlock in the city, and for a time blocked the entrance to a local hospital.

It was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which Michigan state corporate filings show has also operated under the name of Michigan Trump Republicans. It was also heavily promoted by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to the Trump cabinet member Betsy DeVos.

Near the state house, local radio interviewed a man who identified himself as “Phil Odinson”.  In fact the man is Phil Robinson, the prime mover in a group called the Michigan Liberty Militia, whose Facebook page features pictures of firearms, warnings of civil war, celebrations of Norse paganism and memes ultimately sourced from white nationalist groups like Patriot Front.

These are NOT nice people and I have to ask my Republican "friends" if they'd invite these folks into their living rooms and private clubs.  If not, they need to distance themselves from them and the politicians who are working with such ugly groups. As for those being duped to jump on the protest bandwagon, it sad that they still can't see beyond their racism and anger to see that those who are manipulating them are the ones who are most responsible for their economic plight.  The willful ignorance of these people is stunning and sad.

As for the motivation of the organizers behind these efforts (which, no surprise include Fox News), a piece in the  Washington Post lays it all out nicely.  Here are highlights:

The social distancing backlash is here. Like many such eruptions of anger, it’s partly genuine and partly fed by political actors with their own preexisting agendas — in this case, mostly to rescue President Trump’s imperiled reelection campaign. And it will get ugly.

On Wednesday in Lansing, Mich., thousands of protesters came to the state capitol to demonstrate against the stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). Though Michigan now has the fourth-highest total of covid-19 cases of any state, with nearly 2,000 deaths, the protesters argued that Whitmer’s order is unnecessary and overly strict.

“It wasn’t really about the stay-at-home order at all,” Whitmer said later on MSNBC. “It was essentially a political rally.” . . . . some were wearing MAGA hats and carrying Trump signs, and Confederate flags appeared in the crowd (though I’m sure that was just about Michigan’s … um … heritage?). Similar though smaller protests have occurred in North Carolina and Ohio. After the Lansing protest, Fox News swung into action, praising the protest on multiple programs.  The unmistakable message being communicated is that stay-at-home orders are a leftist plot, and conservatives should be rejecting them. It’s all over right-wing media . . . . . The natural comparison to make with these efforts is the tea party eruption, and there are some points of similarity, including conservative media fanning the flames of anger and the overblown rhetoric about liberty . . . . But the more useful comparison is to Donald Trump’s election itself.

Specifically, the way Trump’s campaign was built on the anger of working-class white voters, especially men. . . . . grievances that were exploited by powerful forces on the right for their own political and economic ends. Those grievances were then channeled into an act — voting for Trump — that was primarily expressive in nature.

Liberals are quick to attribute the white working class’s support for Trump to racism and xenophobia, and there’s no doubt they played an absolutely critical role. But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that when Trump told voters in Rust Belt towns that the “the system” was rigged against them, they had reasons to think he was right.

Trump spoke directly to that dissatisfaction — then layered on top of it a heaping portion of hate directed at immigrants, minorities and liberals. Never mind that “draining the swamp” turned out to be more tax cuts for the wealthy and making it easier for corporations to exploit workers and befoul already-struggling communities.

The pain people are now feeling is even more acute. Twenty-two million Americans have filed for unemployment, wiping out a decade of job gains in weeks. In Michigan, roughly a quarter of the workforce is now unemployed, an absolutely stunning figure. None of us have seen anything like this in our lifetimes.

If you’re not sick and you don’t know anyone who has died, it’s natural to say, “Why are we doing this? Why can’t we go back to work?” Then along comes a bunch of Fox News hosts and conservative activists who tell you, “You’re absolutely right. You’re being forced to suffer needlessly. Those snooty liberals in their coastal cities who can comfortably work from home are just trying to screw you over.”

And once again, the solution being offered will only make things worse. Voting for Trump didn’t help people who live paycheck to paycheck, and defying stay-at-home orders will only give new life to the coronavirus, prolonging the pandemic and making it harder to recover economically.

But if Republicans can convince people that the only way to understand this crisis is through a partisan lens, they can tamp down difficult questions about Trump’s performance and minimize the political damage he’ll suffer, making it possible for him to win in the fall. That’s the goal, one they’re pursuing with all their usual cynicism — even as they fight against Democratic efforts to provide more support to those being hit hardest by the recession.

Could it work? Probably not, but it just might.

Pandemic Highlights the USA's Partisan (and Intelligence?) Religious Divide

While it seems a significant majority of Americans are taking social distancing seriously and are heeding the recommendations of medical experts, a sizable segment of the Trump/Republican Party base is challenging stay-at-home orders and in some instances are suing the sane (usually Democrat) governors who wisely did not deem church services as "essential services."  It is part and parcel with the "religious right's" contempt for science and modern knowledge which increasingly show the falsity of evangelicals' beliefs.  Not surprisingly, some Republican governors have created carve outs for church gatherings to appease and pander to the Christofascists.  Similarly, the always despicable AG Bill Barr has sided with churchgoers who received $500 tickets for disobeying a stay at home order  and attending church services.  In short, the pandemic is highlighting the partisan, and I would argue, intellectual, divide between those who comprise the GOP base and in contrast, the Democrat base.  A piece at CNN looks at the the actions of Christofascists who insist on creating a public health menace under the smoke screen "religious liberty" and their Republican apologists and enablers.  Here are article excerpts:

The battle over religious exemptions to coronavirus stay-at-home orders, which flared again over Easter weekend, captures the likelihood of steadily rising tension in coming years between an increasingly secular American society and the most religiously conservative voters, particularly white evangelical Protestants.

Though relatively few churches in fact sought to meet in person over Easter weekend, several religious leaders have prominently asserted that churches should be exempt from stay-at-home orders. The question has produced intense partisan conflict in some states, such as Kansas and Kentucky, where local Republicans and some church leaders have fought restrictions on in-service worshipping from Democratic governors.
 These skirmishes mark a new front in a widening debate over the meaning of religious liberty in an era when white Christians, for the first time in American history, have fallen below a majority of the population -- and face no prospect of reversing that decline in a nation that is growing more diverse and more secular.
 Compounding the volatility, these religious distinctions increasingly parallel the partisan divide. Studies show that white Christians still constitute a clear majority of self-identified Republicans; meanwhile, minorities, secular whites and Americans professing non-Christian faiths represent as many as three-fourths of Democrats.
 The state-level response to the coronavirus outbreak shows the influence of those contrasting profiles. . . . . GOP leaders have generally put more weight on asserting claims of religious freedom.

In Kansas, the GOP Legislature voted last week to overturn Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's decision to include churches in her ban on large gatherings -- only to have the state Supreme Court uphold her jurisdiction in a ruling just hours before Easter Sunday. Such clashes are just the latest measure of the divisions likely to multiply between a Republican coalition still centered on white Christians and a Democratic Party revolving around the disparate groups who don't fit under that shrinking canopy. "Long term it forecasts ... continued polarization between the parties and it'll make all kind of public policy issues very difficult to deal with," says University of Akron political scientist John C. Green, an expert in religion and politics. The pandemic sharpens these disputes because it so starkly raises the stakes for both sides: Not only has the crisis compelled governments to assert almost unprecedented authority to limit religious gatherings, but it also has magnified the potential impact of religious institutions' actions on the health of the broader community. Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of the First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based group that promotes religious freedom from government intervention. "At the beginning everybody was kind of playing well together ... but what's started to happen now is you've got people ... starting to do crazy stuff and discriminate against the church and attack religious entities." Conversely, Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says that exemptions for religious services in state gathering bans amount to unconstitutional discrimination in favor of religion.
 "We should all be able to live confident in the promise of our Constitution that the government will not advantage or disadvantage any of us based on our religious beliefs, but with these religious exemptions that's exactly what the government is doing," she said. "They are saying some of us get special treatment because of our religious beliefs even when that special treatment puts lives at risk. It is immoral ... but it's also unconstitutional." [T]he US religious landscape is inexorably growing more diverse. But this systemic change has affected the parties in very different ways. The result is that religious affiliation has joined such key markers as race, age and geography as a principal dividing line between the two electoral coalitions.

[R]ecent studies, from the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute, two nonpartisan institutions, have found white Christians now account for only about two-fifths of the population. Adults unaffiliated with any religion have grown to represent one-fourth of the total, in both groups' studies, about the same share as racial minorities who identify as Christian.

But while white Christians have fallen below majority status nationwide, they still represent 64% of all self-identified Republicans, according to data Pew provided me last year from some 170,000 survey interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019. The Democratic profile is strikingly different. White Christians now make up only 25% of the party, Pew found, while racial minorities who identify as Christian account for another 30%. About 1 in 11 Democrats observed non-Christian faiths. Fully one-third of Democrats don't identify with any religion at all -- a larger cohort than either group of Christians.

It's easy to see the Republican efforts to minimize constraints on religious gatherings alienating secular voters who view those policies, along with Laser, as favoring religion over science and public health. . . . The coronavirus crisis "could very well" exacerbate the religious divide between the parties, notes Green, of the University of Akron. The key question, he says, is "how do existing divisions play out under the pressure of the crisis?

During the coronavirus pandemic, the critical battlefield for this conflict has been the question of whether to exempt religious services from state limits on large gatherings. . . . . surveys that allow for comparisons along religious lines have found that white evangelical Protestants stand apart from other major groups in their attitudes toward the coronavirus outbreak.

In polling conducted late last month by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, more than two-fifths of white evangelical Protestants described the outbreak as only a minor threat to the health of the US population. White evangelical Protestants were also much less likely than any other groups to say Americans were not taking the threat seriously enough and much more likely to say both that the media was exaggerating the danger and that they approved of President Donald Trump's handling of the crisis.

"White evangelicals have got the skepticism about science and they have the skepticism about big government and they have Donald Trump sowing doubts about how serious this whole thing is and whether we are overreacting," Jones said.  

Today's GOP is increasingly a bunch of ignorance embracing religious zealots currently lead by a lying carnival barker.    

Will the Coronavirus Pandemic Kill Rural America?

Per one piece in the Washington Post, over 2100 cities ate running budget shortfalls and facing layoffs of employees if the coronavirus economic shutdown continues.  Yet in small town America the situation is worse. Another article in the New York Times looks at one small New Hampshire town slammed by the business shutdown and reliant on one major employer where many fear the summer tourism trade will evaporate.  In already economically challenged rural areas of the country - think Southwest Virginia - the situation is being replicated over and over. Hence the push by some to "reopen the economy" and be damned with the risk of ending social distancing even as South Dakota finds itself as a rural hot spot of Covid-19 cases after that state's Republican governor delayed in issuing a stay at home order.  As a piece in the Post notes, that governor acted as follows:  

Such edicts to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, Gov. Kristi L. Noem said disparagingly, reflected a “herd mentality.” It was up to individuals — not government — to decide whether “to exercise their right to work, to worship and to play. Or to even stay at home.” And besides, the first-term Republican told reporters at a briefing this month, “South Dakota is not New York City.”

Yes, there is no easy answer to where the nation finds itself  - a situation made worse by weeks of dither at the federal level thanks to Der Trumpenführer.  Here are highlights from the Times piece on what is unfolding in one place in small town America:

The coronavirus itself was slow to arrive in Bristol, a lakeside town of 3,300 people. The economic destruction came swiftly.

By the end of March, with just a few local cases confirmed, gift shops, yoga studios and restaurants had all shut their doors. Hundreds lost jobs, contributing to a record surge in national unemployment claims.

But at least the Freudenberg factory was running at full strength. The factory, which employs 350 people and makes bonded piston seals and other components for carmakers around the world, has an outsize impact on Bristol’s economy.

Besides paying employees their salaries and the town taxes, the factory — part of a German industrial conglomerate — is the largest customer of Bristol’s sewage and water systems, a linchpin of the annual budget.

As the coronavirus upends economic life around the world, small towns like Bristol are particularly vulnerable. Freudenberg is its lone large employer. There are just a few national chains — a Dunkin’, a Rite Aid and a Dollar General. And many of the small locally owned businesses depend on seasonal residents, who flock to Newfound Lake during the summer, doubling the town’s population for a few months.

The community has tried to come together in recent weeks, with residents extending help to one another and trying to support local establishments. But with unemployment ballooning and the threat of worse financial pain to come, neighborly good will is worth only so much over the long term.

On April 3, the bad news started to spread around town. Freudenberg announced it was firing more than 100 people, shutting down its manufacturing of bonded piston seals and looking for additional buyouts. With car sales around the world essentially halted, automakers were suspending operations, and suppliers like Freudenberg were suddenly without revenue to pay workers in places like Bristol.

The layoffs, however predictable they may have been, were a blow to Bristol’s morale. Several people affected by the layoffs declined to be interviewed, not wanting to upset the biggest employer in town.

Much of Bristol has now ground to a halt. Restaurants were among the first to close last month. The Homestead, a popular spot where locals splurge on crab-stuffed haddock and lobster rolls, tried to do takeout. But after a week of losing money, Mark McDonough, who owns the Homestead and four other restaurants in the state, shut it down.

“If this goes on too long, we won’t survive,” Brad Tonner said. “This is going to kill small-town America.”

A major test of Bristol’s resilience will come this summer, when second homes around Newfound Lake fill up. Though Mr. Coates isn’t even sure the town will open its beaches, some year-round residents are already worried that a surge of visitors could spread the virus.

Yet if the crowds don’t show up, the economy will suffer that much more. “The seasonal businesses will be killed if this isn’t over by the summer,” Mr. Coates said.

And then there is the Freudenberg factory. In a statement, the company said that the layoffs were temporary, and that it anticipated “that the facility will be back on line as soon as our customers and suppliers, themselves, return to normal operations.”

“My concern is that this thing drags on for a year or spikes again,” Mr. Coates said, “and our businesses don’t come back.”

While I worry going to work and meeting with clients armed with a mask and tons of sanitizer, I am grateful that at least for now we have one income still coming in.