There was another protest against stay at home restrictions at the Michigan Capitol this week. Noah Berlatsky, a writer for NBCNewsTHINK and The Verge, tweeted:
At the independent, I wrote about the anti-lockdown protests. They aren't inspired by economic anxiety. They're designed to build fascist power.
…
They aren't agitating for economic relief. Demanding that workers be forced to risk their lives is not a movement for workers.
The protests are designed to help Trump, and to encourage expressions of rage towards the right's enemies. Policy free outbursts of anger and rage designed to boost the right, supported by militias—that's a good thumbnail description of fascism.
Nicole Hammer tweeted a thread:
People have chosen to radically alter their lives both to avoid getting sick and to save other people's lives.
That is a significant political act, and there is enormous support for it. But it doesn't fit conventional political scripts so it's not understood as political. At least, it's not understood as political in the way the lockdown protests are, even though the protests are much, much smaller and have very little public support. The closest we get to a political understanding of the choice to stay home (for those who have that choice) is when we talk about the partisan divide in support for restrictive measures. So the lockdown protests are treated — and legitimated — as a movement, while the much larger political action is not.
And I should add: the lockdown protests are *designed* to look like a traditional political event, and meant to draw exactly the kind of media attention they generate. (Although journalists have been pretty good about looking at the people and pocketbooks behind the protests.)
Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reports on the pandemic prince saying that things are going great and we’re past the worst of the virus, then complaining that the good news isn’t being reported as it should be. Eleveld says it isn’t being told because it isn’t true. And people can see the disparity.
More of Eleveld’s reporting implies this question: If the pandemic news is as good as the prince says it is why does Moscow Mitch insist employers need protection from liability suits from workers who don’t have enough virus protection?
Eleveld concludes:
But make no mistake: What we are witnessing is a Republican party in the throes of an authoritarian spasm in which no one is indispensable. Republicans no longer work for the people; the people are simply pawns in their quest to retain power. As always, Republicans came after Black and brown people first; but here’s a news flash for white folks, now everyone’s on the chopping block. First they targeted the undocumented and migrants, forcibly separating parents and children and putting kids in cages. Then they told us white nationalists were “very fine people” with a legitimate political cause. Then they declared the elderly of every creed and color expendable in their fervor to reboot the economy. Now they’re coming for all the workers; Black, brown, white—anyone who doesn’t have enough of a nest egg to refuse work and still eat.
For the moment, only the very rich are being spared. But if Republicans succeed in retaining their grip on power, any semblance of rule of law as we know it will eventually break down as the GOP stacks the courts with ideologues and the Attorney General turns the Justice Department into a tool of political oppression. Eventually, young or old, rich or poor, Black or white, well-connected or not, only loyalists to the regime and their families will experience any semblance of safety. But it will come with conditions, grave and unconscionable conditions.
A rather vulgar way to explain why people should wear face masks.
A break for sanity: Playing a bit of Beethoven for an elephant. Just relax.
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