Posted on 04/22/2020 6:30:49 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The ads on Facebook sounded populist and passionate: "The people are rising up against these insane shutdowns," they said. "We're fighting back to demand that our elected officials reopen America."
But the posts, funded by an initiative called "Convention of States," were not the product of a grass-roots uprising alone. Instead, they represented one salvo in a wide-ranging and well-financed conservative campaign to undermine restrictions that medical experts say are necessary to contain the coronavirus - but that protesters call overkill and whose economic fallout could damage President Trump's political prospects.
A network of right-leaning individuals and groups, aided by nimble online outfits, has helped incubate the fervor erupting in state capitals across the country. The activism is often organic and the frustration deeply felt, but it is also being amplified, and in some cases coordinated, by longtime conservative activists, whose robust operations were initially set up with help from Republican megadonors.
The Convention of States project launched in 2015 with a high-dollar donation from the family foundation of Robert Mercer, a billionaire hedge fund manager and Republican patron. It boasts past support from two members of the Trump administration - Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development.
"The involvement of the Koch institutional apparatus in groups supporting these protests is clear to me," said Robert J. Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University whose research has focused on climate lobbying. "The presence of allies on the board usually means that they are deeply engaged in the organization."
Brulle said the blowback against the coronavirus precautions carries echoes of efforts to deny climate change, both of which rely on hostility toward government action.
"These are extreme right-wing efforts to delegitimize government," he said. "It's an anti-government crusade."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Gee, imagine if the Leftist media did an actual (truthful) in-depth report on antiFA...
ALL protests have some organizational network that is doing things behind the scenes.
I’m supposed to believe that these clods in scrubs who show up with FearBro messages claiming to be “healthcare workers” are random and spontaneous? Give me a break.
My daughter is a nurse and these days she is WAY too busy to go out and protest anything.
I swear the “media” uses the same story over and over and simply inserts different names——so despicable.
A Leftist professor of environmental "science" and endorser of Bernie...
C'mon, SFGate and WaComPost, how many people did you interview to find someone who will tell you waht you really want to print? If this isn't the pot calling the kettle black, IDKWI...
Gotta make those freedom-loving protesters look like menacing Nazis.
Otherwise other citizens might actually get the idea that they don’t have to obey Government orders.
Next thing you know, the Big Government Agenda is dead! Can’t have that!!
They had better be careful.
My situation is relatively good. Still being paid, no debt to speak of, unconcerned about the future of my job, (I’m near retirement). The restrictions keep me from going to the gym and golfing as much as I’d like. Heck, the weather is impacting me as much as the restrictions.
That said, I’m angry. Not just that momentary spike from experiencing some stupid thing, it’s a deep anger. I’m watching collective stupidity destroy my country. I don’t want to be this angry, but I can’t shake it. The constant reminders of the virus and seeing my fellow citizens quake at the mere mention is infuriating. Knowing that many of the businesses I patronize will close permanently.
If I had big debt, owned a business, had young kids, I would be on the edge. Keep pushing, more than a few will snap.
Conservatives with an opinion. How is this tolerated?!
Ha ha ha!
The same School where the one profressor literally said "I hope we Gulag these crackers", a few years ago over one of those overblown racial incidents.
A Denver radio show host and some independent papers are digging into that “scrubs wearing medical worker) who’s pics are viral.
The media story is doing a typical job of falling apart.
Some things coming out: scrubs had no hospital ID - pretty much a standard of all mospitals, scrubs were colored for surgery - ??, the so-called med workers refused to give there names to the independent reporters, the incident happened far from the center of things, coincidently where the photographer was, the woman who drove the truck gives quite a different story than the media, ...and on and on.
Summary, yup, it’s becoming apparent that we have your typical media “fake news” setup here.
We’ll see.
SJWs always PROJECT.
The “medical personnel” blocking traffic in Denver were probably crisis actors funded by Sore-Ass or Pelosi or the DNC. As if there’s a difference.
(Real doctors have all kinds of pagers and other stuff tucked about their person; they wouldn’t waste precious clean scrubs out on the street, and wouldn’t risk contaminating others by wearing used ones; and the traffic they were blocking was not easy walking distance from the nearest hospital.)
Apologies - I typed the above in haste and did not bother to check my grammar & spelling. Good grief, I’m almost bad enough to call myself a journalist.
Regardless, something smells very Obama-y about the Denver protest story.
I find it interesting that the left have now picked Convention of States as the target to personalize and destroy. Not exactly the happy bunch celebrating about getting a mythical chance to go out of control are they?
You are not alone.
*
I second your assessment. My wife and I are relatively young and stay away from the MSM as much as possible. We are bombarded daily with reminders of this hysteria and get very irritated by the completely nonsensical wearing of masks and hoarding of TP. this all stinks of a larger entity taking advantage of something that amounts to a recoverable illness for most.
Meanwhile if youre tired of seeing society cower in fear and want to see business bounce back youre a radical and backed by some mega corporation? Wow. No self awareness allowed anymore I suppose.
But there is no organization and cooperation among the factions of the Commie left????
They have been engaged in a full blown conspiracy of sedition and treason against the US for many, many years.
I think we ought to start some jailin’, shootin’ & hangin’ against their evil deeds!!!
I suspect that they’ll discover that the “healthcare workers” are SEIU members who are janitors or work in hospital cafeterias.
Something good has come out of this!!!
We have identified them!!!
They could not help themselves, the little communist tyrants.
Almost every state has a recall mechanism. USE IT!!!
Fire them all...
See my tagline
If by “anti-government crusade” you mean forcing the government back in to the confines iterated by the Constitution, then yes.
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