No one really knows where the arc of history is bending these days, but this weekend we got a good look at where the arc of conservative activism is heading. The death toll in the United States from the coronavirus has now topped 40,000 but, egged on by presidential tweets, packs of flag-waving, maskless protesters across the country defied stay-at-home orders to demand that the country reopen quickly. …
But it’s important to understand that the protests are not isolated one-offs. Trump has mobilized much of the right-wing infrastructure that was built over the last 20 years by Conservatism Inc. to get behind this open-it-up campaign and he quickly turning the response to the pandemic from a question of managing a public health and economic catastrophe into just another front of the culture war. CONT.
Charlie Sykes, The Bulwark
Recent polls: Coronavirus pandemic