Coronaviral Rage & Fringe Propaganda

A protester holds a doll with a noose around it's neck
at the statehouse in East Lansing, Michigan on 5/14/20

Last Thursday May 14, 2020 was Judgement Day.

At least in the eyes of the small slice of Michigan's populace who turned out in the rain for a protest held in front of the state capital building in East Lansing last Thursday.

The protest, against the scientifically-based social distancing restrictions put in place by Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, was supposedly organized by a group called Michigan United For Liberty.


That's the same group recently credited with organizing the "American Patriot Rally" back on Thursday 4/30/20 that garnered global attention and criticism when some of the protesters, heavily-armed and masked, entered the statehouse in East Lansing with loaded weapons to pressure Governor Whitmer and state lawmakers to lift health restrictions and cede to their demands to allow businesses across the state to re-open by Friday 5/1/20.

It's hard to believe that in 2020, some state legislators present during that rally wore bullet proof vests out of caution with angry protesters armed with rifles looking down on them from the visitor galleries above the floor of the chamber.

Take a minute to listen to Michigan State Senator Dayna Polehanki speaking out on the floor in support of a senate resolution to immediately ban the open carry of firearms in the state capital.

Organizers self-branded last Thursday's rally, "Judgement Day" - as if the the assembled crowd was now biblically empowered to act as some kind of kangaroo court authorized to sit in judgement of a democratically-elected governor and her policies.

There's something deeply disturbing about the sight a man (pictured above) striding up to the front of the rally holding a fishing pole with an American flag and a plastic doll representing Governor Whitmer with a noose around it's neck suspended from it.

Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer 

Personally I find the overheated, partisan opposition to Governor Whitmer's policies to be more evidence that pro-Trump dark money is likely fueling these protests.

I watched Judy Woodruff interview Whitmer on the Covid-19 challenges Michigan is facing on the 3/27/20 broadcast of The PBS Newshour.

She struck me as having what I consider to be the kind of instinctual political authority, bearing and demeanor that Trump so sorely lacks.

Governor Whitmer comes off as a down to earth, intelligent, informed, level-headed realist who clearly understands how the machinations of politics and governance work to create policy.

A virtual polar opposite of Trump in every way.

She also seems to be able to generate that difficult to define pragmatic optimism that effective presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all had and were able to leverage to help lift public spirits during difficult periods where the U.S. faced serious economic, social and wartime challenges that altered society in indelible ways.

So it makes the sight of an angry protester openly hanging Governor Whitmer in effigy in front of the state house so much more disturbing, suggestive of mysogynist violence, and flat out crazy.

The sight of the noose in this country is also a disturbing reminder of the kind of lawless mob mentality that's led thousands of innocent people to be dragged from their homes (or from remarkably unguarded jail cells) by unruly crowds determined to see them hang without a fair trial.

Protesters with loaded semi-automatic rifles linger in 
front of the Michigan state capital on 5/14/20   [Getty Images]

American history is littered with terrifying examples of what can happen when the mob is allowed to run loose and unchecked by the power of the law.

Like the race-fueled massacre that took place in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma when as many as 300 African-Americans were murdered over the course of two days in 1921.

Or the eleven Italian-Americans who were lynched by a mob stirred up by irrational, anti-immigrant fervor in New Orleans in March, 1891.

The recent protests in Michigan seem more intended to generate headlines, disrupt the news cycle, agitate the public, spark unfounded fears, and attract free media coverage for fringe conservative views that might otherwise struggle for recognition outside the spotlight of mainstream media.

Outside of these conservative-engineered media stunts, the kinds of fringe political and ideological views this movement attracts might otherwise only exist in online chatrooms, social media platforms - or deep inside the murky recesses of the Dark Web where exremist views fester and spread largely unchecked.

With an estimated total population of somewhere around ten million people, Michigan has the tenth largest population of any state in the U.S., a large manufacturing base, multiple professional sports franchises, a number of top colleges and universites, a large tourism industry and GDP that ranked 14th amongst the 50 states in 2019.

Do an assortment of members of fringe conservative groups showing up in front of the state capital holding signs and trying to turn a global pandemic into a pro-Trump political rally represent an accurate snapshot of how Michigan's population feels about the restrictions put in place to save lives?

There's no proof that all of the protesters at the statehouse were even from the state of Michigan at all.

Pro-Trump signage, hats and paraphernalia were everywhere and many protesters didn't even bother to wear protective masks, or observe the basic social distancing protocols recommended by the CDC, scientists and other leading healthcare groups.

Some of the estimated 900 tractors that encamped
on the National Mall for weeks in Feb. 1977  [Jo Freeman]

If these protestors want to excercise their right to freedom of expression, even if I personally disagree with them, I'll still respect their right to express their views - as long as that expression remains peaceful, and respectful of others.

Back in the winter of 1977 I was still in grade school in Bethesda, MD when thousands of farmers from across the U.S. descended upon the Washington, D.C. area with hundreds of tractors to demand increased federal support for family farms.

I was still too young to fully grasp the policy goals and politics behind their protest, but I remember thinking all the tractors intentionally blocking traffic on the crowded streets of DC were pretty cool.

The farmers camped out on the National Mall for weeks in cold February weather, and aside from a few minor traffic violations the protests remained peaceful and respectful for the most part - something that bolstered their position in the eyes of the public in addition to seizing media attention. 

That kind of grassroots protest is such a far cry from the intentionally divisive optics of offensive noose imagery and masked gunmen that's become associated whith these conservative crowd-bombing protests organized with the assistance of shadowy conservative dark money funneled from Republican Party rainmakers like the Mercers, Kochs and Adelsons.

And quite possibly agents of foreign intelligence agencies tasked with sewing internal division inside  America, manipulating media coverage and messing around with the 2020 elections.

That kind of expression-with-guns protest in the public square - that's a step towards the mob.

Protesters in downtown Huntingdon Beach,
California back on Friday 4/17/20

Are the members of this growing alignment of pro-Trump conservatives interested in policy, or disruption?

Can an assortment of Trump supporters bolstered by Libertarians, anti-government extremists, gun rights advocates, members of the anti-vaccine movement and Covid-19 deniers really organize around concrete policy issues - outside of publicly rallying to protect vague notions of "personal liberty" and "freedom"?

Are they really protesting Covid-19 restrictions like lockdowns and social distancing?

Or are they just using the pandemic as a platform to to vent ideological indignation, promote fringe, extremist theories and serve as a defacto radical arm of the 2020 Trump campaign?

It's not just here in the U.S. either, on Saturday protests were held across various German cities, inlcuding Munich, Berlin and Stuttgart. Like anti-Covid-19 protests in East Lansing and other U.S. cities, yesterday's protests attracted individuals from German far-right neo-Nazi and white supremacist elements.

A spokeswoman for the BKA, the German federal police, warned that extremist groups see the Covid-19 protests as an opportunity to promote thier own ideologies - noting that these groups are attempting to, "instrumentalize the situation for propaganda purposes."

It's interesting how quick some people are to vilify the Covid-19 virus and the necessary social restrictions that come with it as some kind of enemy - projecting their inner fears, insecurities and prejudices onto necessary social distancing rules that are in place to help stem the spread and level off the infection rate of one of the most highly transmissible viruses in modern human history.

Venting Coronaviral rage onto the very measures intended to help keep people alive - and calling it Judgement Day - is only a small part of what somes of these protests in states like Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin are really about.