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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump is encouraging a corporate-backed astroturf 'uprising' against his own COVID-19 guidelines
Published 2 hours ago on April 19, 2020
By Joshua Holland- Commentary
Donald Trump threw another tantrum this week, maniacally tweeting in all caps, LIBERATE MICHIGAN, LIBERATE VIRGINIA and so on. On their face, the tweets amounted to the Commander-in-Chief inciting rebellion, which is a felony. The regime naturally denied this interpretation, but as NBC reported, the message pushed many online extremist communities to speculate whether the president was advocating for armed conflict, an event theyve termed the boogaloo, for which many far-right activists have been gearing up and advocating since last year. What could go wrong?
As crazy as all of that seems, its easy to overlook the fact that Trump was encouraging people to rebel against state governments for complying with Trumps own stay-in-place guidelines. While he has expressed confidence in recent days that some states with smaller outbreaks could begin a return to normalcy even before the April 30 expiration date for the administrations most recent social distancing guidance, according to Politico, it is obviously not yet April 30. This is roughly akin to an unhinged, dimwitted Abraham Lincoln urging South Carolina to secede.
But coherence, or lack thereof, doesnt matter. This entire uprising is a propaganda campaign coordinated by the Republican Party, various corporate-funded advocacy groups and the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination groups and other elements of the radical right, according to The Guardian, and promoted relentlessly by Fox News and other conservative media outlets. The Michigan protest, for example, 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.
The people who attend these media events arent paid protesters. It isnt hard to round up a few dozen knuckleheads who believe Trump and the schmucks on Fox over public health experts and will stand on the street with a sign gratis. But polls show that overwhelming majorities of Republicans oppose reopening businesses and schools before we have the capacity to contain the outbreak. Overall, only 10 percent of voters surveyed in a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll support ending social distancing to stimulate the economy, and that was true of just 19 percent of Republicans.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/trump-is-encouraging-a-corporate-backed-astroturf-uprising-against-his-own-covid-19-guidelines/
Turbineguy
(37,206 posts)Trump does everything wrong.
dchill
(38,315 posts)Whenever he was forced to read something in a monotone voice that sounds somewhat same, you can bet there's going to be an insane backlash.