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Prof. Christopher Parker quoted on Wired site, "The Anti-Quarantine Protests Aren't About Covid-19"

Submitted by Stephen Dunne on April 29, 2020 - 2:27pm

"Grassroots or astroturf, anti-quarantine protests are an American mess."

Protesters gathered in cities across the United States, nominally to insist that governments lift the social distancing guidelines put to curb the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic. As protesters hope, the media response was strong immediate. The protesters were small, sparse, and few. However, On Facebook, their supporters have swelled to over 1.4 million strong by the last count by the Institute for research and education on human rights.

It’s important to understand who these protesters are and why they’re demonstrating. “They’re going to claim it’s all about freedom and Constitutional rights. People will say it’s about economic anxiety,” says Christopher Sebastian Parker, who studies American politics and social movements at the University of Washington. “That’s so much bullshit hogwash.”

"Many have compared the protests to the early days of the Tea Party movement. That comparison tracks: The anti-quarantine demonstrations are another reaction to what supporters see as inappropriate government imposition, especially in the economy, bolstered by organizations like conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks, which also aligned itself with the Tea Party. But, like the Tea Party, economic concerns are where the ideology starts, not where it ends."

For the full article please link here.

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