Donald Trump's "LIBERATE" tweets are among his most irresponsible of many irresponsible tweets over the years.
Earlier today, he tapped out "LIBERATE MINNESOTA", "LIBERATE MICHIGAN" and "LIBERATE VIRGINIA" within a matter of seconds. Coincidentally, this occurred while Trump's main news source Fox News was covering a small protest in Michigan calling for the lifting of restrictions aimed at putting a lid on the rampant COVID-19 spread in America. He wouldn't have been watching day-time TV, would he?
In fact, there have been similar small protests against common-sense social distancing measures in Michigan, Ohio, North Caolina, Minnesota, Utah, Virginia and Kentucky, and more are planned in Wisconsin, Oregon, Maryland, Idaho and Texas. But Trump chose to only tweet about those states thay happen to have Democratic governors. And make no mistake, despite Fox News fixation with them, these are small protests, ranging from a few dozen to a few thousand in the case of the largest (Michigan), and a large (and growing) majority of Americans are in favour of aggressive lockdown measures to defeat the virus.
But they sure were ugly protests, bringing together a motley band of far right agitators, from regular conservatives and libertarians, religious fundamentalists and anti-vaxxers (?), to extreme white nationalists and gun-toting anti-government militias. In addition to American flags and Confederate flags, there were references to the neo-fascist group the Proud Boys, Make America Great Again hats (of course), and placards and chants exhorting "Don't tread on me", "Freedom trumps safety and communism", "Social Distancing = Communism", "We are not prisoners", "Give me liberty or give me COVID-19" (I kid you not), "Heil Whitmer" and "Lock her up!" (the latter two specifically aimed at Michigan Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer). Oh, and a bunch of AK-47s. Only in America, you might say...
These guys - and yes, they were pretty much all guys - were definitely not keeping 6 feet from each other, although interestingly some were hedging their bets and wearing masks! It would be interesting to see how many of them come down with the coronavirus, although unfortunately that will almost certainly prove untrackable.
And Trump's tweets? Well, what can you say? He claims to be supportive of state measures to contain and control the spread of the virus, and his support of the protests contradicts his own administration's official guidance. One would also have thought that the tweets contravened Twitter's own recently adopted rules on COVID-19 propaganda. But, hey, when did Americans ever get consistent or sensible reactions from Donald J. Trump? Isn't there some kind of law against a sitting president fomenting mass rebellion, or did the founding fathers not anticipate such an extreme and confounding president as Trump?
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