Here’s the already iconic image of a divided America in the middle of a pandemic. In one of a smattering of protests over the weekend against coronavirus lockdowns, a supporter of President Trump in Denver jeered at a counterprotesting medical worker from a silver Ram truck. “This is a free country,” she said, before telling the medical worker to “go back to China.”
Trump later defended these scenes, arguing that the protesters — some of whom were mobilized by far-right, pro-gun groups on Facebook and assembled near city halls or other public buildings in mostly small numbers over the past few days — were agitating against governors who “have gone too far” in their imposition of restrictions on daily life. A recent poll found that a majority of Americans fear that the government is moving too quickly to lift restrictions. But Trump may pull at this seam in the coming weeks, hoping to focus his base’s ire on domestic opponents even as he finds it impossible to dispel the scrutiny of his own missteps in the early stages of the crisis.
Still, the economic anxiety in the United States, as is the case elsewhere in the world, is all too real. New projections from Columbia University researchers suggest that a coronavirus-provoked recession could spike U.S. job losses — and poverty — to five-decade highs. Far from U.S. state capitals, protests are building against lockdowns in poorer countries. About 2 billion people around the world depend on day work and live in countries whose governments are mostly unable to compensate for their loss of wages. Continue reading.