Middle-class America rises against lockdown
Nick Allen
The line of cars stretched for more than a mile from the steps of the woodendomed state building of Maryland’s capitol Annapolis. Horns blared in protest for hours as signs and giant flags saying “Trump 2020 No More Bulls---” were waved from windows.
“We want our city opened now!” a middle-aged woman screamed from the passenger seat of an expensive white SUV. A girl, aged about 10, leaned out of her family’s sedan holding a sign. It said: “Covid is a Lie!”.
Unlike recent protests in industrial states like Michigan and Ohio, the capital of Maryland was an improbable setting for an anti-lockdown rebellion.
Annapolis, a genteel city of 40,000 on Chesapeake Bay, an hour from Washington DC, is known as the “sailing capital” of America, and is home to the US Naval Academy.
The average income is twice the national average. Unemployment has not previously been an issue.
But this weekend’s vehicle-based protest – called “Operation Gridlock” – mobilised middle-class Annapolitans in numbers the organisers, a group called Reopen Maryland, had never expected. Hundreds paraded through the city’s narrow, central streets Many in American suburbia, it seems, have had enough.
Protester David Thalheimer, 58, an engineer, stuck a large sign out the sunroof of his SUV quoting the poet Robert Frost. “The best way out is always through,” the sign said.
“It means you can’t delay the inevitable, we have to just go through the virus,” Mr Thalheimer said. “Sensible measures there can be, but what we have now is way too much. It’s hitting the economy exponentially and we can’t continue like this. They need to test people. Instead, they’ve just done all this out of fear.”
Natalie Brown, 43, who runs a successful, though currently stalled, travel business, brought a sign saying “This is 2020 not 1984”.
She said: “It’s getting to be like an Orwell novel come to life. They’re talking about tracking us for coronavirus … It’s all a total violation of our laws and constitutional rights.
She added: “Our governor doesn’t like Donald Trump, so he’s just doing the opposite of what Trump says. Trump says reopen, so he doesn’t reopen.”
Most US states have imposed some form of lockdown measures and they remain popular. According to a Quinnipiac poll, 81 per cent, including 68 per cent of Republicans, back a national stay-at-home order. However, the poll was taken over a week ago.
But in recent days Americans who want an end to orders like the one in place in Maryland have felt buoyed by the president.
He has encouraged states to “liberate” themselves, offering sympathy for protesters and tirades for, mostly Democrat, state governors who refuse to countenance a quick lifting of restrictions. This weekend other protests took place in the state capitals of Texas, Indiana, Nevada and Wisconsin. Larry Hogan, Maryland’s governor, is a Republican, but he has been critical of Mr Trump’s handling of the crisis. Mr Hogan is also chairman of the powerful National Governance Association, of which Andrew Cuomo of New York is the vice chairman.
Reopen Maryland called on Mr Hogan to immediately lift his closure of businesses, schools and churches.
Evie Harris, a spokesman, said: “We know there have been many victims and fatalities across the country from the virus. [But] we believe there are equally, and maybe even more, people in the last 30 days who have been resigned to poverty or near poverty.
“They’ve lost their businesses, their livelihoods. This cannot go on. This is not sustainable. These are real people behind the numbers.”
Participants in the protest were advised to stay in their cars to avoid breaking Mr Hogan’s ban on gatherings of more than 10 people. However, a small number did abandon their vehicles. They included a man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt, and no mask, who waved a giant US flag near the state building. Another protester, a military veteran, said he was not scared of catching the virus and would “rather die than give up my freedoms”.
As cars poured by the capitol’s manicured lawns, many Annapolitans made their feelings known through words painted on their windscreens.
Statements included “The models are wrong”, “Legalise Church”, “We the people”, “Live Free or Die”, and “1776,” a reference to the Declaration of Independence.
Maryland has suffered around 500 coronavirus deaths, and more than 12,000 cases. According to Mr Hogan the peak has not yet been reached and he will not reopen anything until daily figures have declined for at least 14 consecutive days, and testing capacity has tripled. So far, Maryland has lost 300,000 jobs in a month.
Mr Hogan said: “I’m a lifelong small-business guy. There’s nothing more important to me than getting our economy back, getting people to work, [but] we’ve doubled [coronavirus cases] over the past week. As soon as we can, we’re going to get open safely. But I understand everybody’s right to protest. I understand their frustration.”
Outside the state building, a lone counter-protester, Amy Windham, 51, a health researcher, stood with a thick mask on her face, waving a “Go Home” sign at passing vehicles.
“They have their right to protest and so do I,” she said. “But I think they’re being irresponsible.”
She was interrupted as a woman wound down the window of an SUV and, without a mask, yelled “You go home!” Ms Windham said it wasn’t the first, or worst, abuse she had received.
‘Our governor doesn’t like Donald Trump, so he’s just doing the opposite of what Trump says. Trump says reopen, so he doesn’t’