Over the past few weeks, thousands of Americans have gathered to oppose stay-at-home restrictions put forth by state governors in response to COVID-19. Demonstrations lobbying for the reopening of businesses, schools, and places of worship have taken place on statehouse lawns and on the streets in over a dozen states, amassing crowds varying from two hundred people to over two thousand.
The movement was inspired by a demonstration in Lansing, Michigan, on April 15th, called “Operation Gridlock”. Cars gridlocked the area around the state’s capitol to protest Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-home restrictions and caused traffic backup onto local highways. The rally, organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition (MCC) and the Michigan Freedom Fund, encouraged participants to “be loud”, “make signs”, and “honk”, causing an uproar to show disapproval. They additionally asked those who are high-risk or immunocompromised to stay home or protest from their vehicles. Despite the rule, listed three times, to “stay in your vehicle”, many rallygoers walked the streets with signs and American flags and gathered on the steps of the capitol building.
The mainstream media has been unfairly covering Reopen America rallies, reporting that the majority of rallygoers violate social distancing guidelines and refuse to wear masks despite drone footage showing groups walking six feet apart and most wearing masks, bandannas, and even N-95s. More and more articles are starting to come out claiming that all rallies are “linked” to President Trump via conservative figures like Betsy DeVos and the Koch family, as well as through “dark money organizations”. Though President Trump posted Tweets in support of the rallies in Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia and claimed that state governors have “gone too far”, no evidence has emerged to prove that he was directly affiliated in the demonstrations’ organization. Local newspapers even reported smaller rallies to be grassroots-based and nonpartisan.
The Independent, Business Insider, and Governor Whitmer criticized the Lansing rallygoers for carrying “Confederate flags” and “swastikas”. However, the stars and stripes of the American flag were in abundance, and “Don’t Tread on Me” and Trump flags were flown. NBC News stated that “at least two Confederate flags could be spotted”. Reports of swastikas appearing at the Lansing rally were not exactly accurate, either – a few demonstrators carried signs reading “Heil Witmer” [sic] with a swastika, illustrating the governor as a fascist, which is clearly an exaggeration. Though these images are alarming, it is unjust for the media to recap an entire national movement by bringing them to the forefront. As Marian Sheridan, co-founder of MCC, said, “people holding the signs comparing Whitmer to Hitler were absolutely not members of [MCC].”
Why are these people taking to the streets? At this writing, over 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment, and that number is mounting week by week. A recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association has expressed concern for the risk of suicide due to economic stress, social distancing, barriers to treatment, inaccessibility of religious centers, and other anxiety-inducing factors. In fact, the suicide rate reached what was, at the time, a record high of 21.9 per 100,000 people during the Great Depression. Counselors at the Disaster Distress Helpline reportedly saw a “338 percent increase in call volume” in March 2020 compared to February 2020. Is history repeating itself?
In addition, hospitals have delayed treatments and canceled surgeries in order to conserve personal protective equipment (PPE) and protect patients from the coronavirus. Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society, Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, received calls from cancer patients across the country who had procedures canceled. “There was someone who had a brain tumor who was told they would not be able to have surgery, which was, basically . . . a death sentence for that patient,” Dr. Lichtenfeld told Kaiser Health News.
There is a lot for American citizens, as well as citizens of the world, to be worried about.
Reopen America demonstrations have also caused epidemiologists to vocalize concern that rallies could cause COVID-19 surges if enough people were to break stay-at-home guidelines and go outside. This warning is contrary to a new study from four Chinese scientists, claiming that coronavirus could be more likely to spread indoors than outdoors:
“We divided the venues in which the outbreaks occurred into six categories: homes, transport, food, entertainment, shopping, and miscellaneous . . . 53.8% involved three cases, 26.4% involved four cases, and only 1.6% involved ten or more cases. Home outbreaks were the dominant category (254 of 318 outbreaks; 79.9%), followed by transport (108; 34.0%; note that many outbreaks involved more than one venue category) . . . We identified only a single outbreak in an outdoor environment, which involved two cases. Conclusions: All identified outbreaks of three or more cases occurred in an indoor environment, which confirms that sharing indoor space is a major SARS-CoV-2 infection risk.”
Pennsylvania state Representative Mike Jones (R) attended a “Reopen PA” rally in Harrisburg on April 20th. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, he described his experience: “I saw the best of America: people exercising their rights to free speech and assembly in defense of economic liberty.” People do not gather here just to resist government or ridicule masked frontline healthcare workers who stand in counter-protest. While documenting a small Reopen rally for Minutemen Media, I noted that rallygoers stay peaceful, waving to passing cars shouting obscenities at them. The patriots in attendance cheer for truck drivers and first responders, who honk their support.
These hardworking Americans, using their Constitutional right to gather to stand for another way to protect the country and its people from the coronavirus, are depicted by the mainstream media as a violent, swastika-bearing mob, which is so far from the truth.
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