CNN
(CNN)Patience is in ever-shorter supply. No one is happy with the current situation. But some Americans see the yoke of oppression in public health efforts to keep people home, and they’re growing louder.
Underneath the general frustration and dazed acceptance of so much of the world changing its lifestyle for the time being lurks a growing defiance of the science that tells us how to deal with Covid-19 and the government that is telling everyone (to varying degrees) to stay indoors.
That President Donald Trump, normally an expert stoker of conspiracy theories, is leading the government may have initially muted the Covid-19 deniers. No more. A few instances of Twitter protest — including from Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who bragged over the weekend about going to the beach — have flowered into full-scale public demonstrations in Michigan.
Success creates second-guessing. Trump’s anxious efforts to get the economy opened even before the curve of Covid-19 cases is flattened, and his chronic spreading of fake promises about treatments, will only feed that growing angst.
The more successful the federal and state governments are at flattening the coronavirus infection curve, the more people will question whether halting the nation’s economy was necessary in the first place.
Despite the deniers, even Trump is not rushing to open things up. Read more about his announcement Thursday of new guidelines on reopening the country.
The guidance is not unlike what California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced recently as his own criteria. Read it here.
The bottom line: Trump and Newsom appear to agree that the worst of this must pass, different parts of the country will open earlier than others, and testing and tracing of cases must improve.
The doubters. But another 5.2 million people filed for unemployment last week, bringing the total since mid-March to 22 million. That is an astonishing number. As the economy continues its free fall, you can feel the backlash grow. The government has already blown through the $349 billion it earmarked to help small businesses during this mess.
We’re all going to be paying for this for a very long time.
Protesting public health — CNN’s Jeff Zeleny writes a must-read profile of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has been on the job for only a few months but is already turning into a key national figure.
Drivers jammed into Michigan’s capital and surrounded the state Capitol in a protest against her stay-at-home order that featured neither face masks nor social distancing, but rather the honking of horns that could be heard inside.
Zeleny: “The collision between a public health battle and a political one, which played out for more than five hours here on Wednesday, underscores the boiling tensions of a restless nation struggling with the wisdom of reopening the economy before the deadly pandemic subsides, even as President Donald Trump moves closer to easing national guidelines for social distancing.
“Whitmer could hardly ignore the scene, considering the honking horns, raucous jeers and blaring music became background noise for her video conference call with health care workers.”
Regional authorities — Whitmer is among the bipartisan group of seven Midwestern governors who have said they will coordinate their efforts to slowly reopen society.
It mirrors a similar announcement by governors on the East and West costs, completing the emergence of ad hoc regional pacts in place of national guidance from a skeptical President.
Fox News turns again. In February and much of March the conservative outlet fed the coronavirus deniers, then took things seriously when New York became ground zero for the pandemic in the US, but it has turned again.
Now conservatives are fomenting rebellion against public health guidelines.
In their warped telling, people who venture out in public aren’t vectors for infection but rather freedom fighters standing up to oppression.
As CNN’s Brian Stelter writes, “Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday tweeted approvingly of people in Michigan demonstrating against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s order. “Time to get your freedom back,” Ingraham declared.
“Soon Marylanders, Virginians, etc will stand for their right to work, travel, assemble, socialize and worship? Massive long lasting damage is piling up day after day as many ‘experts’ continue to get the virus analysis wrong,” Ingraham wrote in another tweet.
The disease has been felt much differently by different groups of people. African Americans and Latinos are much more concerned they will personally get the disease, that they’ll unknowingly spread it, according to a recent Pew poll. A Gallup poll suggests widespread respect for social distancing, but party identification is the largest differentiator and Republicans are more likely to say they’ll immediately get back to normal after restrictions are lifted.
Those perceptions could change. See the recent reports about a rise of coronavirus in rural America.