Conservative groups plot, back protests
WASHINGTON — An informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House, has been quietly working to nurture protests and apply political and legal pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Groups in the loose coalition have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals, dispatched their lawyers to file lawsuits, and paid for polling and research to undercut the arguments behind restrictions that have closed businesses and limited the movement of most Americans.
Among those fighting the orders are populist groups that played pivotal roles in the beginning of tea party protests starting more than a decade ago, such as Freedom Works and Tea Party Patriots. Also involved are a law firm led partly by former Trump White House officials, a network of state-based conservative policy groups, and an ad hoc coalition of conservative leaders known as Save Our Country that has advised the White House on strategies for a tiered reopening of the economy.
The initiatives, powered by a mix of grassroots activism and well-funded groups with ties to the White House, are emerging as President Donald Trump is pushing governors to open their states.
The effort picked up some influential support Tuesday, when
Attorney General William Barr expressed concerns about statelevel restrictions potentially infringing on constitutional rights and suggested that, if that occurred, the Justice Department might weigh in, including by supporting legal challenges by others. Separately, in Wisconsin, Republicans in the state legislature sued to block the Democratic governor’s order extending stay-athome rules through May 26.
Those helping orchestrate the fight against restrictions predict the effort could energize the right in the same way the tea party movement did in 2009 and 2010. But the cause has yet to demonstrate that kind of traction. Polls show a majority of Americans are more concerned about reopening the country too quickly than they are about the damage to the economy. And coronavirus protests have drawn smaller crowds ranging from a few dozen to several thousand at a rally in Michigan last week.
Conditions are hardly ideal for a protest movement related to the virus. In addition to the health risks, demonstrators potentially face legal exposure for violating the very measures they are protesting. Plus, some key Republican leaders have embraced the types of restrictions being targeted, while powerful grassroots mobilizing groups, including those spearheaded by billionaire activist Charles Koch, have so far not embraced the protests.
Still, the fight has emerged as a galvanizing cause for a vocal element of Trump’s base and others on the political right. Organizers see it as unifying social conservatives, who view the orders as targeting religious groups; fiscal conservatives who chafe at the economic devastation wrought by the restrictions on businesses; and civil libertarians who contend that the restrictions infringe on constitutional rights.
“Groups are united in purpose on this,” said Noah Wall, advocacy director for FreedomWorks, which in 2009 organized a tea party protest that drew tens of thousands of people or more to Washington. He described the current efforts as appealing to a “much broader” group. “This is about people who want to get back to work and leave their homes,” he said.
More than 10 protests are planned for this week, Wall said, adding that elected officials “are going to see a lot of angry activists, and I think that could change minds.”
Occasional Confederate flag
The protests mostly appear to have been organized by local residents and are framed primarily as pushback against what they view as government overreach. But some rallies have prominently featured iconography boosting Trump and Republicans and denouncing Democrats, as well the occasional Confederate flag and signs promoting conspiracy theories.
As was the case with the tea party movement, established national groups that generally align with the Republican Party have sought to fuel the protests, harnessing their energy in a manner that can increase their profiles and build their membership base and donor rolls.
Nonprofit groups including FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots have used their social media accounts and text and email lists to spread the word about protests across the country.
Most of FreedomWorks’ 40 employees are working remotely on the effort, helping to connect local protesters and set up websites for them. The group is considering paid digital advertising to further increase turnout and has been conducting weekly tracking polls in swing suburban districts that it says show support for reopening parts of the country. It is sharing the data with advisers on the president’s economic task force and other conservative allies on Capitol Hill.
While social media has been a key platform for organizing the protests, those efforts have drawn scrutiny. Facebook removed some posts devoted to the protests Monday for encouraging violations of social distancing laws. And similarities in online organizing efforts behind different protests have sparked accusations that they are not, in fact, organic grassroots campaigns but “astroturfing” efforts that are manipulated by Washington conservatives to appear locally driven.
Organizers of recent protests in Oklahoma acknowledged that FreedomWorks helped arrange the events and said they hoped the “rolling protests,” which were intended to keep people in their vehicles, helped Trump politically. But they stressed that the events reflected real concerns from real people about the economic damage inflicted by mitigation measures.
‘We have a lot of wind’
Carol Hefner, an Oklahoma cochair of Trump’s 2016 campaign who helped organize a protest last week in Oklahoma City, cited the state’s flat terrain as a factor in any decision to ease restrictions. “We have a lot of wind, and the wind has pretty much helped us here,” she said. “We are in a much better position than many of the other states to go ahead and open back up.”
Ronda Vuillemont-Smith, an Oklahoma heating, ventilation and air conditioning contractor who helped with the capital rally and another one Monday in Tulsa, said she encouraged protesters to remain in their vehicles. But Vuillemont-Smith, who serves on FreedomWorks’ activist advisory council, added, “I see absolutely no risks whatsoever” for open-air protests. “We are adults. We assume personal responsibility for the decisions that we make,” she said.
The Oklahoma organizers and Wall, as well as the White House and the Trump campaign, said there was no coordination between the protests and Trump’s team.
But the protests coincide with messages from Trump and have been helped and organized by his supporters, some of whom have begun ventures to advance the cause.
Support for the protests features more direct ties to the White House than simply support for Trump. The administration recently formed an advisory group for reopening the economy that included Stephen Moore, the conservative economics commentator. Moore had been coordinating with FreedomWorks, the Tea Party Patriots and the American Legislative Exchange Council in a coalition called “Save Our Country,” which was formed to push for a quicker easing of restrictions.
At the same time, Moore was communicating with a group of local activists in Wisconsin involved in organizing a protest at the state Capitol set for Friday. On a conservative YouTube program that went online the day Trump named him to the task force, Moore said he had “one big donor in Wisconsin” who had pledged financial support for the protesters, telling him, “‘Steve, I promise, I will pay the bail and legal fees of anyone who gets arrested.’”
In an interview with the New York Times, Moore declined to identify the donor but said, “I do think you’re going to see these start to erupt.”
He said he would probably turn down an invitation to speak at the protest in Wisconsin because “it’s important that no one be under the impression that it’s sponsored or directed by national groups in Washington.”