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 ...
Like a Vast Rightwing Conspiracy? LOL. We're back baby!
Looks like the fish WraPo is softening its readership in the event Pantsuit von Fannybags is coronated over slo joe at the convention.
The effort I’m involved in includes among its leaders a college professor and her husband (founders), a DoD consultant, 2 nurses with perhaps 50 years clinical experience between them, a small businessman, and me (a retiree and GOP county chair) as well as several others. We are “Reopen Maryland”. We have 22,000 members in a FB group. I’m still looking for our billionaire benefactor.
What you said in spades!!!!! Thats exactly how I feel. To the point that if I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom I cant get back to sleep for thinking of it. Its affecting my health and my relationships with family, friends and coworkers.
“Its affecting my health and my relationships with family, friends and coworkers.”
Sadly, I have to admit to the same. I try to unplug, but it’s darn hard to escape the constant drumbeat. I cannot believe how much I’ve come to loathe DeWine and his overly sincere helper Acton. DeWine has always been loathsome, but in a benign sort of way. Not anymore. I can’t vote Dem, but if they run that old POS again, I will leave that part of my ballot empty.
Yeah...because EVERY Trump supporter has an app installed on our Trumphones that tell us when and where to meet and how much money we’ll get paid for doing so.
Oh, wait....that’s BLM/Antifa/SEIU and their 0blamaphones.
I would not be surprised, at all, if the these groups don’t, indeed, have some sort of lefty coordination app installed on their subsidised phones.
“I swear the media uses the same story over and over and simply inserts different namesso despicable.”
Yup and the pearl clutchers out there (and right here) are eagerly eating up the bullsh*t
One medical quack who thinks he’s an expert! Fu(k Fauci the two faced little turd spewing propagandist
They LIE. I just heard from a woman this AM who said her dad had and MI and died. He tested covid NEGATIVE. And the cause of death was listed as covid!
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