Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer deemed the anti-quarantine protesters who demonstrated both in the streets and in the state Capitol building “racist and misogynistic.”
Whitmer’s strict stay-at-home orders, meant to stem the spread of the coronavirus, have faced backlash, including protests last month in the capital of Lansing. In a particularly heated moment, protesters, some of whom were carrying rifles and other long guns, gathered inside the House chamber and yelled down to the legislators on the floor.
The Democratic governor, who has said some protesters also brought Confederate flags and swastikas, criticized the protesters during a Wednesday interview on ABC’s The View.
“These have been really political rallies where people come with Confederate flags and Nazi symbolism and calling for violence,” she said. “This is not appropriate in a global pandemic, but it’s certainly not an exercise of democratic principles where we have free speech. This is calls to violence. This is racist and misogynistic.”
“I ask that everyone who has a platform uses it to call on people to observe the best practices promulgated by the CDC and to stop encouraging this behavior because it only makes it that much more precarious for us to try to reengage our economy, which is what everyone says they want us to be able to do,” Whitmer continued.
She also warned that, “in a perverse way,” the protests could lead to an extension of the stay-at-home restrictions.
Late last month, the Michigan House opposed Whitmer’s request for a 28-day extension. But Whitmer used her executive privilege to extend the state of emergency, against the wishes of Republican lawmakers who want to reopen the state’s economy, so that the state’s shelter-in-place guidelines could remain in place. The GOP-led legislature is seeking legal recourse.
