Gonna Be Bumpy

I don't know about your media feed, but mine is full of fellow liberals and moderates worked up about the "Liberate State X" demonstrations.

ABC News

The hypocrisy is stunning. It's usually FoxNews and Trump mocking the protesters and promoting laws that make it literally dangerous to protest. This time, it's the Trumpster himself egging things on.

I reckon they're "Freedom Fighters" when you want 'em to be.

But some good reporting has brought out two key pieces of information. These are hardly grassroots campaigns organized by concerned citizens. And we can expect more of this.

• The protesters aren't exactly laser focused. They're not practicing social distancing. Trump claimed they were standing six feet apart, but it's obvious from the video that's not the case. More to the point, some protesters are carrying semiautomatic rifles, some are carrying Confederate flags, and a few are sporting swastikas. In short, the protests are basically rallies of the kooky right wing fringe: they're generally small, and they don't reflect even conservative popular opinion. 
• The protests are not grassroots uprisings; they're orchestrated. Some of their funders have been exposed, and they include links to people like Betsy DeVos. Common text appears on the "ReOpen" Facebook pages for different states. And New York Times tech reporter Nicole Perlroth shared that "Someone on Reddit figured out that all the 're-open the economy' websites were created on the same day by the same guy in Jacksonville, FL." (Some of the website development seems to be related to gun rights groups.) The Washington Post traces much of the organizing to gun rights groups (more below). Crucially, Trump mentioned Second Amendment concerns in a pro-protest Tweet. He knows what's up.

(If you're brave enough to dive into the rabbit hole, try this.)

One website. Common texts. Common funders. This is organized right-wing wacko bullshit, the kind the Mueller investigation warned about, being manipulated by Trump boosters to distract from Trump's own failures. Of course Trump encourages it. From the Mueller Report on Russian-controlled demonstrations:

The IRA organized and promoted political rallies inside the United States while posing as U.S. grassroots activists.... The Office identified dozens of U.S. rallies organized by the IRA. (p. 29)

To reiterate, the protests are designed to distract from Trump's manifest failures in dealing with the coronavirus. They're meant to incite chaos. Trump's failures are showing up in the polling numbers. 

• 60 percent of Americans want the stay at home orders to stay in place.
• 58 percent are more concerned about the virus's spread, while 32 percent are more concerned about the economy.
• Asked who they trust for information, 69 percent say the CDC; 66 percent their own governors; 60 Anthony Fauci; 46 percent New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo; and 35 percent Mike Pence. (Cough.) By the way, Joe Biden comes in at 26 percent trust, 29 percent don't.
• In the same poll, 36 percent say they trust Trump.

Polls are just polls, but Trump cares about them a lot. Here's something else Trump cares about: inconvenient facts. Governors and business leaders alike say it's not safe to loosen up society until we have ample testing in place. Over the weekend Trump said, "America’s testing capability and capacity is fully sufficient to begin opening up the country totally."

Two key governors called bullshit, one a Democrat and one a Republican. Republican governors play a critical role right now, and Maryland's Larry Hogan, Ohio's Mike DeWine, and to a lesser degree Vermont's Charlie Baker and Vermont's Phil Scott provide the true index of Trumpian mendacity: they ignore him all they can, and they call him out when they have to.

Yesterday Virginia Democrat Ralph Northam, face unsmeared by shoe polish, called Trump's claims "delusional" and "irresponsible." 

Jake, that’s just delusional to be making statements like that. We have been fighting every day for PPE, and we’ve got some supplies now coming in. We’ve been fighting for testing. It’s not a straightforward test. We don’t even have enough swabs, believe it or not, and we’re ramping that up.

But for the national level to say we have what we need, and really to have no guidance to the state levels is just irresponsible because we’re not there yet.

And thank God for Larry Hogan, who considered running for the GOP presidential nomination this year.

To try to push this off to say that the governors have plenty of testing and they should just get to work on testing, somehow we aren’t doing our job, is just absolutely false. Every governor in America has been pushing and fighting and clawing to get more tests. Not only from the federal government, but from every private lab in America, and from all across the world.

Also,

It's not accurate to say there's plenty of testing out there and the governors should just get it done. That's just not being straightforward. 

"Irresponsible," "absolutely false" and "not straightforward." In other words, bullshit.

Trump's problems lie with facts, and they keep piling up.

• After praising the Chinese for their transparency, Trump is now blaming his slow response on Chinese deception and on the WHO. Trouble is, several of China's neighbors acted immediately to hem in the virus, and the US was receiving accurate reporting from Americans embedded in the WHO. 
• In addition to all the security warnings Trump ignored, now we know that US intelligence warned Israel and the EU about the threat back in--wait for it--November.
• The New England Journal of Medicine released a report by the chief officer of a Massachusetss hospital, documenting how multiple federal agencies interfered in his attempts to acquire needed supplies.
• White House Press Secretary Keyleigh McEnany bragged about how the US has now conducted 4 millions coronavirus tests. Trouble is, Trump promised 27 million tests by the end of March. 4 million was the goal for March 9.
• On other empty Trump promises, see this Times story.

This is only the beginning of the ugly, friends. We'd best buckle up.