Trump appears to stoke protests against stay-at-home orders

Donald Trump has posted highly incendiary tweets stoking protests against physical distancing and other coronavirus stay-at-home measures in three states led by Democratic governors.

“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” the US president wrote in capital letters on Friday. “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”

He followed up with a third tweet: “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” – a reference to Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, last week signing into law new measures on gun control.

Trump has repeatedly ignored his own entreaty to put partisan politics aside during the coronavirus pandemic. His latest provocative interventions followed demonstrations against stay-at-home orders in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and other states that have drawn elements of the far right.

Some protesters have carried guns, waved Trump and Confederate flags and sought to frame the debate as a defence of constitutional freedoms. They have been egged on by conservative media hosts such as Fox News’s Jeanine Pirro, who said: “What happened in Lansing [Michigan] today, God bless them: it’s going to happen all over the country.”

Trump, known to watch Fox News closely, has offered mixed messages. On Monday he claimed “total” authority to order an end to the stay-at-home measures, but on Thursday he issued phased “guidelines” that passed the buck to governors to make decisions on the ground about when and how to reopen. His tweets on Friday appeared to undercut his own experts’ warnings and drew sharp criticism.

Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington, tweeted in response: “The president’s statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts. He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting Covid-19. His unhinged rantings and calls for people to ‘liberate’ states could also lead to violence. We’ve seen it before.”

Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman who like Inslee ran for the nomination to face Trump in November, said: “Republicans will turn a blind eye [and] too many in the press will focus on ‘tone’. But history books will say: in April of 2020, when the pandemic had already claimed 35,000 lives, the president of the United States incited people to storm their statehouses with AR-15s and AK-47s.”

Michigan has taken big hits in both coronavirus cases and job losses and will be a critical battleground state in the presidential election. Wednesday’s “Operation Gridlock”, a demonstration against strict stay-at-home policies ordered by Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, attracted the Proud Boys and other far-right groups who have been present at pro-Trump and gun rights rallies in Michigan.

Most protesters stayed in their vehicles and circled the state capitol building in Lansing, but a small group stood on the capitol steps to flout physical distancing guidelines. They brandished signs that included “Trump/Pence”, “Recall Whitmer”, “Heil Whitmer” and “Stop the Tyranny”, and briefly chanting “Lock her up!”, echoing Trump campaign rallies’ targeting of Hillary Clinton.

Whitmer, who dismissed the stunt as “essentially a political rally”, has emerged as a possible a running mate for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden. Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said at an online “Women for Trump” event Whitmer had “turned this crisis into a platform to run for vice-president”.

The protests have earned comparisons with the Tea Party movement of a decade ago and more are expected in coming days, with the tension between public health and economic reopening viewed through an increasingly partisan lens.

The Washington Post reported: “Uncertainty and fear over the economic impact of stay-at-home orders is fueling a sort of culture war between conservatives, whose political strength now comes from rural America, right now less affected by the virus, and liberals, whose urban strongholds have been most affected by it.”

Last Saturday, for example, the Republican senator Ted Cruz, a Trump ally, tweeted that he was going to the beach with his children. “Fortunately, I live in Texas – where we protect public safety, but aren’t authoritarian zealots – so they won’t arrest me!” he wrote.

According to Pew Research, 81% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say their greater concern is that governments will lift these restrictions too quickly. About half (51%) of Republicans and Republican leaners say their bigger concern is that state governments will act too quickly while slightly fewer (46%) worry more that restrictions on public movement will not be lifted quickly enough.

At Thursday’s White House coronavirus taskforce briefing, Trump was asked if he would urge protesters to listen to local authorities. He replied: “I think they’re listening. I think they listen to me. They seem to be protesters that like me and respect this opinion. And my opinion is the same as just about all of the governors. They all want to open. Nobody wants to stay shut, but they want to open safely. So do I.”

On Friday, he let rip with more tweets attacking Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic governor of New York, and Obama and Biden, the former Democratic president and vice-president. “The States have to step up their TESTING!” he added, though the federal government has not devised a national testing strategy.

Cuomo shot back: “If he’s sitting at home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work.”