Trump Should Call Rallies ‘Protests’ to Show COVID-Shaming Hypocrisy

By: Daniel John Sobieski

Liberal-progressive types were overjoyed that the Chinese Wuhan virus plague and fears of mass gatherings were keeping President Trump off the campaign trail where he couldn’t shout over the media filter and Joe Biden in the basement where his senior moments were relatively unseen.

Now that is about to end with a Trump rally in Tulsa that has garnered over a million ticket requests while Joe Biden would have trouble filling a VFW hall if he could even remember what “VFW” stood for. The prospect of a vigorous Trump rocking tens of thousands in venues that only he, rock stars, and professional sports teams could fill while Biden struggles to fill a bingo hall and speak in complete sentences, has Democrats panicked so they have decided to play the COVID-19 card.

President Trump accused the media and liberals of trying to “COVID-shame” his campaign into canceling a planned rally, saying his critics didn’t express similar health concerns over massive protests against racial injustice.

The president tweeted that the “far-left” news media “had no COVID problem with the Rioters & Looters destroying Democrat-run cities.” But he said the media is “trying to COVID-Shame us on our big Rallies. Won’t work!”

One is touched by the left’s sudden concern for the health and safety of Trump supporters and stunned by the magnitude of their hypocrisy. Trump supporters gathering en masse is a public health menace but flooding the streets with terrorist groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter is not only not dangerous but gives you some kind of self-righteous immunity from infection, according to a letter signed by a group of quack physicians who insisted that fighting racism is worth the risk and no precautions need be taken but that a Trump rally is nothing but a reckless “super-spreader of disease and death that should be prohibited:

A group of over 1,000 “health experts” signed a letter supporting the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and riots but are against any conservative, working American or Christian protest gathering.

These dishonest hacks try to explain how the dangerous Black Lives Matter protests and riots are good for society and acceptable during a pandemic.

But these same leftists describe conservative protests against COVID-19 lockdowns as racist and dangerous and should not be allowed,

These doctors see social injustice involving African-Americans as perfect end-justifies-the means rioting, arson, and protests while the alleged perpetrators of the injustice, white Trump supporters, deserve to be cast into the outer darkness. They actually consider alleged social justice and racism as a greater public health threat than any virus so their sanctioned protests are permissible. As Insider.com noted:

“One in every 1,000 Black men and boys can expect to be killed by police in this country,” Dr. Maia Majumder, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School, told Vox. “To me, this clearly illustrates why police brutality is a public health problem; anything that causes mortality at such a scale is a public health problem.”…

“White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19,” a letter signed by over 1,000 public health experts said.

Now if you believe that white supremacy is a lethal health threat then you can believe anything and justify anything. As former White House Chief of Staff and incompetent Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel famously opined, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste  They see the perfect storm of Chinese Wuhan virus lockdowns and urban riots as the perfect way to overthrow our culture, our democracy and Western civilization itself and to end the resistance of President Donald Trump by ousting him with the poster child for senility, Joe Biden. This is what these health experts said in their letter:

Staying at home, social distancing, and public masking are effective at minimizing the spread of COVID-19. To the extent possible, we support the application of these public health best practices during demonstrations that call attention to the pervasive lethal force of white supremacy. However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from demonstrators’ ability to gather and demand change. This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders. Those actions not only oppose public health interventions, but are also rooted in white nationalism and run contrary to respect for Black lives. Protests against systemic racism, which fosters the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on Black communities and also perpetuates police violence, must be supported.

The nonsense that because alleged racism and its impacts are a greater health threat than any virus protests against it are a good thing and rallies by allegedly racist Trump supporters are a bad thing is just stunning. So while a “racist” Trump rally in Tulsa is bad, a homosexual and transgender protest and march in West Hollywood is a good and peaceful thing:

Thousands gathered on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Sunday and together marched to West Hollywood in the “All Black Lives Matter” solidarity protest to decry racial injustice and support LGBTQ rights.

Leaders of black LGBTQ rights groups organized the peaceful demonstration, which began at 11 a.m. in front of TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard as protesters chanted, “No justice, no peace” before marching into West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard.

The procession swelled and stretched for miles from Hollywood and Highland into the West Hollywood area, with protesters raising rainbow flags and holding up balloons and colorful signs as they chanted. Overhead, a small plane pulled behind it a “Black Lives Matter” banner that fluttered over the city, echoing the demonstrators’ words. Music could be heard throughout the protest, with some stopping to dance along the way….

Many waved pink and blue flags reading “Black Transgender Rights Matter” as they participated in the march.

Ahead of the protest, the words “All Black Lives Matter” were painted in bright, colorful letters along Hollywood Boulevard in front of the iconic Dolby Theatre Saturday….

It is estimated 25,000 people were participating in the protest as of 2 p.m., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

That is about the capacity of the venue in Tulsa holding Trump’s rally which is in reality a protest. Those gathered will be protesting big government and the deep state that has tried to illegally overthrow the duly elected President of the United States. The attendees at the Trump rally/protest will be protesting attempts to take away their constitutional rights under the guise of protecting our health. They are truly America’s huddled masses yearning to breathe free under the stifling oppression of government mandates. They are protesting threats to their safety as liberal jurisdictions release tens of thousands of felons onto the streets while calling for the defunding of ICE and the police. They are protesting the fact that we can’t patronize our local businesses but rioters can burn them down. People going to church are stalked and picketed by arsonists and looters are free to go.

The Wuhan virus pandemic is a liberal/progressive dream come true. It gives them the recession they have prayed for, the only time they pray, to oust President Trump. Their reason for getting up in the morning is to enact laws and programs that control every aspect of our lives and the Wuhan virus gives them the chance to do just that. They are not letting this crisis go to waste and are moving swiftly to exercise the authority they do not legally have to shred the unalienable rights our Creator endowed us with and the Constitution was written to protect.

Americans are tired of an oppressive government that for our own good, they tell us, simultaneously the most benign and evil of motives, locks us in our homes based on computer models that have never been right from day one and health guidelines that keep changing so much they might as well be written on an Etch-a-Sketch. They want to “flatten the curve” as they succeed in crushing our hopes and dreams. They seek treatments and a cure for a virus ignoring the health care costs of crushed lives and dreams, the human costs of lost jobs and careers, of nest eggs broken on the ground, and of people who used to provide for their families fighting in stores over rolls of toilet paper. We are being guided by the best infectious disease experts in the world, we are told, experts so smart they didn’t anticipate or consider the lives lost from depression, suicide, drug and alcohol addiction and despair in a land where abortion is considered an essential procedure but a heart stent and CT scans not so much.

Americans are poor from an economy brought to its knees by a malevolent adversary, China, and a government whose leaders chat with late-night talk show hosts and sit at home in their mansions in gated communities eating expensive ice cream stored in refrigerator freezers few Americans could afford when times were good and normal.

Americans are huddled in their homes, in numbers the government must approve of. The Last Supper would have been illegal under current guidelines as it involved more than 12 people having dinner outside their own homes.

And they yearn to breathe free, wanting to play catch with their kids in an empty park only to be taken away by the police state that has arisen around them. They want to paddle a kayak on an empty private lake or to hear a Sunday homily or sermon over a speaker in their cars in a church parking lot without a bevy of Barney Fifes chasing them down and handing them tickets for amounts higher than most criminal bail amounts. Like William Wallace in “Braveheart,” they are shouting “Freedom!

Among the many illogical things that liberals have tried to include in bills and policies dealing with the Chinese Wuhan virus pandemic is to try to repeal our gun rights under the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Various jurisdictions have decided that places like gun shops and firing ranges are “non-essential” businesses even as they make our communities more dangerous by releasing criminals early and ordering police to ignore certain crimes in the name of fighting the pandemic. Self-defense in a time of social unrest and economic uncertainty is considered unnecessary as if criminals are going to  “social distance” themselves from their victims.

A pandemic does not change our constitutional rights or the need to defend ourselves, our property, and our families against predators bigger than a virus. The Michigan protestors wanted to make that point, albeit with the most potent of visual aids. They do not appreciate politicians, or cable pundits for that matter, telling them that only police can carry firearms and that we the people aren’t the “right people,” dare I say it again, to bear arms.

Governors like Whitmer have already put this nation at risk with so-called “sensible restrictions” on gun ownership and a plethora of gun-free zones such as schools that have proven to be inviting targets for mass shooters. They are fine with gang crime pandemics in our inner cities as is inviting MS-13 predators to migrate to our sanctuary cities. Exploiting a virus crisis to gut the Second Amendment is not beyond them.

We will carry our guns where we are entitled to carry them with the Second Amendment as our gun permit until they pry them from our cold, dead hands. The Second Amendment is needed now more than ever as the self-righteous social justice warriors try to disband ICE and defund police and enforce laws with pajama-boy social workers.

We have become slaves of an oppressive if well-meaning government bureaucracy and liberal activists in and out of government who, like Rahm Emanuel, think crises are a terrible thing to waste and who, like Houe Majority Whip James Clyburn, think it is a perfect opportunity for liberals to push their agenda. This is why we see House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushing vote by mail and the elimination of voter ID requirements.

Consider the irony of liberals who oppose Voter ID as a “show me your papers” form of tyranny while being open to things like the proposed “immunity pass” which, after being tested for virus antibodies, would allow one to go to work and otherwise move about freely. Never mind that those who heeded warnings and guidelines, didn’t get sick and didn’t spread it to others are rewarded with continued house arrest. All this makes sense to the liberal mind who thinks it is fine to put prisoners on the streets for fear of the virus while closing down gun and ammo stores that would allow us to protect ourselves from them

Americans chafe under the notion that the constitutional rights many fought, died or got maimed for, are not considered essential in a pandemic. Witness the pastor who tried to hold a drive-through Sunday service where people stayed in their cars while listening to his sermon on a loudspeaker:

“Drive-in church services that attempt to adhere to social distancing guidelines by keeping worshipers physically apart from one another in their own cars will not be allowed this Easter Sunday in at least one Mississippi community, as the coronavirus crisis has left wide swaths of the country shut down,” reports Fox News.

It happened in the city of Greenville, Miss., where King James Bible Baptist Church previously enacted this ‘drive-in’ format after a state-wide shelter in place order was issued by the governor early this month.

“Churches are strongly encouraged to hold services via Facebook Live, Zoom, Free Conference Call, and any and all other social media, streaming and telephonic platforms,” the mayor of Greenville said in an earlier directive.

But as Fox notes, the governor’s order did not place a specific ban on drive-in services: “The Rev. James Hamilton of the King James Baptist Church in Greenville tried to hold a drive-in service anyway — and police arrived to shut it down, as seen in cellphone video he recorded.”

The pastor can be seen confronting police who just before Good Friday services arrived with multiple squad cars to “warn” the church not to hold any services there, Easter included. The pastor in the video says the police “heard through the grapevine” the congregation was going to hold service at 6:30.

In a video of the confrontation, a police officer actually approaches pastor Hamilton and asserts this astounding line: “We got an order from the governor, your rights are suspended.” Our rights are what? You are allowed to use the drive-thru to the liquor store but face fines or arrest in a church parking lot. And lest you think this was just one overzealous cop, consider the words of the Democrat Governor of New Jersey Phil Murphy in an interview with Tucker Carlson of Fox News:

Carlson asked Murphy about the arrests in Ocean County, N.J., of 15 men who were congregating for a rabbi’s funeral at a Lakewood synagogue in early April. “

The Bill of Rights, as you well know, protects Americans’ rights — enshrines their right to practice their religion as they see fit and to congregate together to assemble peacefully,” Carlson said. “By what authority did you nullify the Bill of Rights in issuing this order? How do you have the power to do that?”

“That’s above my pay grade, Tucker,” Murphy replied. “I wasn’t thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this. … We looked at all the data and the science and it says people have to stay away from each other. That is the best thing we can do to break the back of the curve of this virus, that leads to lower hospitalization and ultimately fatalities.”

The very Constitution you took an oath to protect and defend is above your pay grade, Governor? This is the attitude Americans are starting to rebel against. Democrats accused Trump of being a dictator. Governors such as Murphy and many mayors too are little dictators, little Napoleons whose true colors are being revealed, who believe in data and science but not liberty and freedom and not an American people who tamed a continent, split the atom, went to the moon, and beat Nazism, Fascism, and Communism.

So why can groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa take over city neighborhoods by force and riot and loot and burn against perceived injustice but tax-paying law-abiding Americans cannot peacefully gather to protest against very real oppression by a government that strips them of their constitutional rights on a whim? The protestors at the Trump rally, like most Americans, are not suicidal or stupid. They want to be treated like adults. They want to live, but they want to live free.

So its nor surprising that Americans want to protest a governor who thinks it okay to buy marijuana but illegal and dangerous to buy seeds to plant tomatoes and vegetables in a spring garden or to buy a garden hose in April. Don’t tell people who lost their livelihoods that they are risking their lives. For many, thanks to the lockdown, their lives are effectively over. They are fighting the pandemic of big government, saying enough is enough, and are saying what Patrick Henry said in fighting government oppression – give us liberty or give us death.

Let the Tulsa protest begin.

Daniel John Sobieski is a former editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and free lance writer whose pieces have appeared in Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.