While many Americans are filled with fear, Melissa Ackison says the coronavirus pandemic has filled her with anger. The stay-at-home orders are government overreach, the conservative Ohio state Senate candidate says, and the labeling of some workers as “essential” arbitrary.
“It enrages something inside of you,” said Ackison, who was among those who protested Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s orders at the statehouse in Columbus with her 10-year-old son. She has “no fear whatsoever” of contracting the virus, she said Thursday, dismissing it as hype.
The Ohio protest was among a growing number staged outside governors’ mansions and state Capitols across the country. In places like Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia, small-government groups, supporters of President Donald Trump, anti-vaccine advocates, gun rights backers and supporters of right-wing causes have united behind a deep suspicion of efforts to shut down daily life to slow the spread of the coronavirus. As their frustration with life under lockdown grows, they’ve started to openly defy the social distancing rules in an effort to put pressure on governors to ease them.
Some of the protests have been small events, promoted via Facebook groups that have popped up in recent days and whose organizers are sometimes difficult to identify. Others are backed by groups funded by prominent Republican donors, some with ties to Trump. The largest so far, a rally of thousands that jammed the streets of Lansing, Mich., on Wednesday, looked much like one of the president’s rallies — complete with MAGA hats and Trump flags — or one of the tea party rallies from a decade ago.
