Coronavirus: anti-containment, Donald Trump's new campaign weapon

There were more than 2,500 in Olympia, capital of Washington State, and hundreds in Denver, Colorado, Sunday, April 19. As in Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota or Kentucky the previous days, these demonstrators defied the prohibitions to assemble to protest against the containment measures implemented in these states to fight against the spread of Covid-19 .

These activists have been portrayed, in turn, as the vanguard of a new Tea-party - the anti-Obama libertarian movement of the early 2010s - in the days of the coronavirus or as pawns in Donald Trump's strategy to ensure his re-election. The American president hastened to support these demonstrations with a series of tweets calling for "liberating" these states from the supposed yoke of governors, often democrats, who would oppose a return to normal life.

Frenzied individualism

But these demonstrations do not have “a political dimension at the origin”, affirms Jean-Éric Branaa, specialist of the United States at the university Paris 2 and author of “Nothing will be more like before: America at the time coronavirus ”(published by VA Press), contacted by France 24. According to him, it is not a partisan movement, launched to defend a Donald Trump criticized for his management of the health crisis.

“This is fundamentally a constitutional question: these demonstrations refer to the American report on containment and illustrate the reluctance of some to give up their freedom to come and go to protect the most fragile, those who are most threatened by the spread of the virus “, Assures the French researcher. According to him, these rallies are a manifestation of the frenzied individualism of part of the Americans. 

In Kansas, a court ruled illegal on Saturday the state governor's decision to ban gatherings of more than ten people in places of worship on the grounds that this restriction violated everyone's religious freedom.

In this sense, the multiplication of demonstrations against containment measures recalls the beginnings of the Tea Party. "There is the same DNA in both movements", confirms to the Vox site Adam Brandon, a libertarian who participated in the outbreak of the Tea Party in the early 2010s. At the time too, these activists were demonstrating against what 'They perceived government obstructions to their fundamental freedoms. Supporters of the Tea Party had thus erected the Obamacare as the symbol of the State encroaching on their individual freedoms, by seeking to impose on them a mode of health insurance.

But the current anti-containment movement has not been like the Tea Party, funded from the start by wealthy supporters of the Conservative party, such as the Koch brothers who made it an anti-Obama weapon. "In the beginning, the demonstrations were not pro-Trump, it just happens that most of the people who participate in them also belong to the president's base electorate," notes Jean-Éric Branaa.

All-round recovery operation

Everything changed with the rally in Michigan on Wednesday, April 15, where pro-Trump signs were omnipresent. Due to its size, the demonstration, which mobilized several thousand people, propelled the anti-containment movement to the forefront of the media scene. But this time, Donald Trump's allies were on the move. The organization of this action was partially funded by the Michigan Freedom Fund, an organization close to Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump's secretary of education. The rally was also supported by the Michigan Conservative Coalition which also operates under the name of Michigan Trump Republicans to organize events in honor of the president, the British daily newspaper The Guardian discovered.

Rebelote in Idaho two days later, where the demonstration was supported by the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a libertarian organization linked to the financial empire of the Koch brothers. Meanwhile the media favorable to Donald Trump, starting with Fox News, has rolled out the red carpet in support of this anti-containment movement.

Finally, the president himself carried the message of these protesters by three tweets calling for "liberating" Michigan, Virginia and Minnesota. Four days earlier, he had already signaled his intention to ride the wave of this growing discontent by tweeting that one of his favorite films was “the rebels of the Bounty”, a 1962 work which tells the story of a mutiny. on the Bounty ship against a too strict and cruel captain. "It was a way for Donald Trump to give his assent to anti-containment activists to demonstrate," notes Jean-Éric Branaa.

Tell the Democrat Governors that “Mutiny On The Bounty” was one of my all time favorite movies. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!

This pro-Trump political recovery of the anti-containment movement has not escaped the notice of the governors of the states concerned by these demonstrations. "In my lifetime, I have never attended the spectacle of an American president who encourages individuals to violate containment measures which are state laws," said Jay Inslee, Democratic Governor of the State of Washington. Several jurists have also expressed doubts about the legality of these injunctions to "liberate" states which could very well be taken as calls to overthrow democratically elected governors.

"It is clear that Donald Trump has decided to blow these embers," analyzes Jean-Éric Branaa. For him, the president tries to use the demonstrators as an asset in his standoff against the governors, whom he seeks to pass for the real responsible for the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus. "He presents himself as one who wants to liberate the country by putting it back to work, while the governors prevent it," summarizes the political scientist.

It is, in reality, the return of Donald Trump from the 2016 campaign, who presented himself as the candidate of the little people against the establishment. For Jean-Éric Branaa, the political recovery of the anti-containment movement “marks the end of the health management phase of the crisis by the White House and the start of the political exploitation of the situation”. With the November 2020 election in sight.

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