And so it begins

The rampant plunge into teabagger inspired stupidity.

Not 48 hours after founding member of the Liars Club and all around shitbag, John Hinderaker, published a hit piece of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer attacking her and other governors for actually trying to, you know, save lives – the Astroturfing began in Kentucky, Michigan, and in other places.

Thousands of protesters in cars and on foot have flouted Michigan’s stay-at-home orders to demand the state reopened. ‘It’s time for our state to be opened up’ said one protester in her car. ‘We’re tired of not being able to buy the things that we need, go to the hairdressers. It’s time to open up’. Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer was the main target of armed pro-Trump protesters, with some chanting ‘lock her up’ on the steps of Lansing’s town hall. Whitmer responded hours after the protest saying she understood the frustration but the ‘sad irony’ about the demonstration was that it could have further spread the virus and therefore created the need to extend Michigan’s stay-at-home order. So far, 1,900 Michigan residents have died due to the coronavirus

Idiots. These are the worthless slime that Hinderaker writes for. If you are a long time reader here, you know the only thing I want for John Hinderaker is a slap over the head with one of these.

What’s even worse is that Hinderaker then went on over the next couple of days to make the case that we, as a nation, should just have let lots of people die. While I am not surprised that Hinderaker would choose to side with evil ( he does it all the time), I am surprised at the fact that he doesn’t even bother to hide his selfishness at all. That’s always been the Powerline motto: I got mine, fuck you.

As with most things associated with Hinderaker, you just can’t hate the man enough.

However, before anyone does that, I think it’s very important to look harder at what is happening here. Specifically, the why Hinderaker and the rest of the slime want to sacrifice Grandma to save their portfolios. Because when these guys get involved, there is always a deeper and more sinister motive. Just as there was 10 years ago when the teabaggers started their celebrations of selfishness. That too was carefully choreographed to look like a people’s movement when in reality it was a public relations ploy to advance the overall agenda of political apartheid and minority, one party, rule in America.

NO ONE and I do mean no one, wants these shutdowns to go on longer than they have to. But anyone who is not contemplating a conditions-based and carefully phased return to economic activity is a blithering idiot. Which is exactly what Hinderaker and the rest are.

Once again, Europe is doing it better than the United States and Angela Merkel actually explains to the rest of us what Hinderaker does not want you to know.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the country will begin to slowly ease lockdown restrictions—some shops can open next week and schools will return starting May 4.

The country has suffered more than 3,200 reported COVID-19 deaths. But Merkel said it’s achieved “fragile intermediate success” in controlling the pandemic. This won’t be your Germany of 2019. The businesses that open will have to follow strict social distancing and hygiene precautions. Germans are strongly encouraged to wear face masks when riding public transportation or going shopping. And large public gatherings are still banned until Aug. 31.

Zoom out: Europe is beginning to recover. Spain’s construction and manufacturing workers are back in action, as are many stores in Austria and some in Italy. Kids under 11 are going back to school in Denmark.

A sobering bottom line, via Merkel: “It is a fragile situation in which caution is required, not exuberance.”

The WHO has set six conditions for relaxing coronavirus lockdowns. Extreme boredom isn’t one of them.

Not once does Hineraker or the rest of the goons point out that restarting the economy requires a massive testing regime. It’s been pointed out by experts several times: Health systems should be able to “detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact”

Hinderaker ignores these and other prudent recommendations for one reason, it highlights the failures of the Trump regime in addressing the COVID-19 problem in the first place. Hinderaker deliberately keeps calling it the Wuhan virus as if shifting all the blame to China will somehow excuse Trump’s miserable failures here. They won’t.

Ultimately Hinderaker’s goal is to continue to undermine trust and faith in scientific expertise. That is why he continues to beat the dead horse about how social distancing was unnecessary, despite the fact that over 33,000 people have died in just 6 weeks. As easy as it is to ridicule him, one can never underestimate how really dangerous he is. Or how committed he is to a one-party authoritarian government. He wants you to believe that everything will be just like it was before. It is not going to be and he damned well knows better. It’s not ignorance on his part, he just does not care. Fundamentally, like Trump he is a truly evil man.

And those “grassroots” demonstrations? Just like the tea parties 10 years ago they were anything but spontaneous.

Like many such eruptions of anger, it’s partly genuine and partly fed by political actors with their own preexisting agendas — in this case, mostly to rescue President Trump’s imperiled reelection campaign. And it will get ugly.…….

“It wasn’t really about the stay-at-home order at all,” Whitmer said later on MSNBC. “It was essentially a political rally.”

Indeed, the event was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition. Though many protesters stayed in their cars, many others congregated on the sidewalks, making a point of not wearing masks. But some were wearing MAGA hats and carrying Trump signs, and Confederate flags appeared in the crowd (though I’m sure that was just about Michigan’s … um … heritage?). Similar though smaller protests have occurred in North Carolina and Ohio.

 The Michigan Conservative Coalition & the MI Freedom Fund, have ties to the DeVos family-and are a conservative group funded by them. As Betsy DeVos is a serving cabinet secretary, any involvement by her in this type of political demonstration is wholly inappropriate.

Why is summed up very well by Paul Waldman himself:

The natural comparison to make with these efforts is the tea party eruption, and there are some points of similarity, including conservative media fanning the flames of anger and the overblown rhetoric about liberty (though hopefully, we can do without the Founding Father cosplay this time).

But the more useful comparison is to Donald Trump’s election itself.

Specifically, the way Trump’s campaign was built on the anger of working-class white voters, especially men. Like the protests against social distancing, it was based on legitimate grievances that were exploited by powerful forces on the right for their own political and economic ends. Those grievances were then channeled into an act — voting for Trump — that was primarily expressive in nature.

And just like in 2009, they choose to ignore his actual agenda, so intoxicated are they with the idea of giving a giant middle finger to the forces they thought were holding them down. It is who they are and what they do. Sick, twisted sociopaths like Hinderaker have made a fortune catering to their stupidity.

Here’s Waldman again:

If you’re not sick and you don’t know anyone who has died, it’s natural to say, “Why are we doing this? Why can’t we go back to work?” Then along comes a bunch of Fox News hosts and conservative activists who tell you, “You’re absolutely right. You’re being forced to suffer needlessly. Those snooty liberals in their coastal cities who can comfortably work from home are just trying to screw you over.” And once again, the solution being offered will only make things worse. Voting for Trump didn’t help people who live paycheck to paycheck, and defying stay-at-home orders will only give new life to the coronavirus, prolonging the pandemic and making it harder to recover economically.

Like Trump, Hinderaker is a terrible human being and deserves every bit of scorn and hatred that can be directed at him.