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

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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.

After the Lansing protest, Fox News swung into action, praising the protest on multiple programs. A representative of the MCC was interviewed on Tucker Carlson’s show Wednesday night, then came back for another interview on “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning.

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The unmistakable message being communicated is that stay-at-home orders are a leftist plot, and conservatives should be rejecting them. It’s all over right-wing media:

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Fox News host and occasional Trump adviser Jeanine Pirro praised the Michigan protesters: “God bless them, it’s going to happen all over the country.”

Pirro’s colleague Laura Ingraham tweeted a video of the protest, adding, “Time to get your freedom back.”

Rush Limbaugh accused Whitmer of being a pawn of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

Twitter troll and acting director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell posted a picture of the Constitution with the caption “signed permission slip to leave your house.”

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 in 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.

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Liberals are quick to attribute the white working class’s support for Trump to racism and xenophobia, and there’s no doubt they played an absolutely critical role. But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that when Trump told voters in Rust Belt towns that the “the system” was rigged against them, they had reasons to think he was right.

They’d watched for years as union representation declined, stable manufacturing jobs departed, health coverage grew more costly, and wages stagnated. The recovery after the Great Recession left many people no better off than before. Unemployment was low, but if the only job around is one at Walmart and opioids are ravaging your town, it’s hard to feel like everything is going great.

Trump spoke directly to that dissatisfaction — then layered on top of it a heaping portion of hate directed at immigrants, minorities and liberals. Never mind that “draining the swamp” turned out to be more tax cuts for the wealthy and making it easier for corporations to exploit workers and befoul already-struggling communities.

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Many of his voters have chosen 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.

The pain people are now feeling is even more acute. Twenty-two million Americans have filed for unemployment, wiping out a decade of job gains in weeks. In Michigan, roughly a quarter of the workforce is now unemployed, an absolutely stunning figure. None of us have seen anything like this in our lifetimes.

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.

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But if Republicans can convince people that the only way to understand this crisis is through a partisan lens, they can tamp down difficult questions about Trump’s performance and minimize the political damage he’ll suffer, making it possible for him to win in the fall. That’s the goal, one they’re pursuing with all their usual cynicism — even as they fight against Democratic efforts to provide more support to those being hit hardest by the recession.

Could it work? Probably not, but it just might.