#MICHIGAN GRIDLOCK SERIES#

He recently settled a defamation lawsuit filed by the father of a child murdered in the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. Jones has a long history of promoting dubious claims through his talk show, Infowars. Organisers of the Michigan protest reportedly asked the police to remove the group from the event.Īlex Jones, a noted conspiracy theorist, meanwhile was active at a rally in Austin, Texas over the weekend, where he was photographed shaking hands with protesters.

#MICHIGAN GRIDLOCK SERIES#

The Proud Boys have been accused of a series of violent acts and racist rhetoric, and are present in several countries across the globe. Michigan’s protest drew the Proud Boys, a far-right group once considered the vanguard of the “alt-right” movement that was ascendant following the election of US President Donald Trump.įollowing the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, its original leader, media personality Gavin McInnes, began separating from the group due to its focus on race instead of “Western Values”, which McInnes claims he values. Though the events appear to be organised in part by mainstream conservative groups, they also have attracted fringe groups.Ī man wearing a shirt supporting the Proud Boys conservative group makes a hand sign considered linked to the far-right Many featured the same introduction text on their “About” sections, including Operation Gridlock Tennessee and Operation Gridlock Los Angeles. Websites and Facebook groups, as well as Reddit threads, calling for states to reopen also popped up across the US over the last week. Text on that Facebook page was identical to text on the Facebook pages of similar events in Virginia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, ReOpen Maryland, which held its first rally in Annapolis on April 18 and was reportedly attended by hundreds, was organised by Evie Harris, who told The Guardian that the protest in Michigan was an inspiration. Matt Seely, a spokesman for the Michigan Conservative Union, told Buzzfeed that other groups had asked them to “share their template” and there will be “massive” protests in the US in the coming days. McNeilly denied to Buzzfeed that any member of the DeVos family was involved in the protest. The Michigan Freedom Fund has received over $500,000 from the DeVos family in the past and was founded by Greg McNeilly, a family political adviser. Michigan’s Operation Gridlock was co-hosted by the Michigan Freedom Fund and the Michigan Conservative Coalition. Healthcare workers stand in the street in counterprotest to hundreds of people who gathered in Denver, Colorado, to call for an end to the state’s stay-at-home order Operation Gridlock was “funded in large part by the DeVos family and I think it’s really inappropriate to for a sitting member of the United States president’s cabinet to be waging political attacks on any governor,” Whitmer said, in reference to Betsy DeVos, secretary of the US Department of Education. Whitmer responded by saying she understood the concerns of citizens enduring measures to control the spread of the coronavirus and welcomed their demonstrations, but criticised those whom she claimed were behind the protests. The demonstration was meant to protest Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s strict coronavirus lockdown measures. One of the first protests that took place was in Michigan last week, with a group Facebook page called “Operation Gridlock” calling for demonstrators to take to their vehicles to stop traffic near the state’s capitol building in Lansing on April 15.

Here’s a look at who and what were behind the anti-lockdown protests. Many of the events were also promoted by far-right groups and known conspiracy theorists. While organisers claimed the anti-lockdown protests are grassroots movements, some groups have received funding from conservative megadonors in the past. Many were also frustrated that they could not work or lost their jobs due to state lockdowns. Those who protested said they were concerned that their constitutional rights and freedom were being curtailed in the fight to contain the pandemic. The number of people protesting was relatively small compared with those who have abided by stay-at-home orders. While some protested from their vehicles, many others defied coronavirus social distancing guidelines as they rallied on state capitol grounds and in front of governors’ homes in several states including Michigan, Kentucky, Washington, Minnesota, Virginia and Colorado. Thousands of people in the United States took to the streets over the past week to demand the country’s swift reopening.

Michigan gridlock