The Wyoming governor updates us regularly on the coronavirus pandemic. A good thing, since he's come under fire for both not issuing a mandatory stay-at-home order and for issuing a suggested stay-at-home order. He issued several orders that closed businesses and schools.
On Monday, Gov. Mead walked put of the capitol building to speak to a crowd of people protesting the Gov's stay-at-home suggestions and mandatory closures. Following cues from right-wing social media sites, protesters have gathered at state capitols to vent their spleens. Their constitutional rights are being trod on because the Gov won't let them die in their own stupid way. They've held rallies in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado, to name a few. More to come...
The president eggs them on as do GOP activists. We high-risk Boomers stay at home and wonder how many of these protesters will get COVID-19 and infect others. Chris and I have attended some memorable protests in our day, including Cheyenne's first Women's March in 2017 and a big Occupy rally in Denver. I'me marched against several wars although now the conflicts just blend in together. I protested the Vietnam War in 1970 and 1971 and the Nicaraguan Contra War in the 1980s. I joined a friend's family at the Honor America Day Rally on the National Mall in the summer of 1970. We ran for cover when tear gas clouds drifted over the picnicking Silent Majoritarians as the cops misjudged wind direction when gassing the Yippies smoking pot below the Washington Monument.
I believe that everyone deserves a right to protest, no matter the cause. I attended some of the Tea Party rallies in 2010-2011 on the state capitol grounds. The crowd mostly made up of white people my age -- over 60. Many looked just like me. Gray-haired (or bald), wearing glasses, probably lugging around a per-existing condition or two. I listened to the speeches and wondered how my sensibilities were so different from theirs. Some are white supremacists without knowing it. Others know it and show it with their signs and stars-n-bars flags. I didn't know it at the time but these were the same people who went to the 2016 polls in droves to elect Trump. And now they're back out yelling about the COVID-19 hoax and governors stomping on their constitutional right to die at work.
So, protest away, all you White Lives Matter people. I can be understanding to a certain point. Not as understanding as Gov. Gordon, who spoke over shouts from the angry crowd Monday. The best revenge is to get to the polls and elect Democrats. Wyoming now is a one-party state kind of like North Korea and the countries of the old Soviet bloc. Trump and his GOP minions like it that way.
They must go.
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