Conservatives fuel protests over lockdowns

AUSTIN, TEXAS >> Dave Litrell stood at a socially un-distant length from his fellow protesters Saturday.

Some shook hands. Others hugged. More than a hundred people rubbed elbows and shoulders, their signs and flags touching, their faces unmasked. Litrell, 46, held his 6-year-old daughter as those surrounding him chanted to reopen the American economy outside the state Capitol building in downtown Austin.

“I don’t fear a potential pathogen,” he said of the fast-spreading coronavirus that has compelled most governors to shut down their states, including nonessential businesses. “I think there’s potential pathogens around us all the time, and for the most part, we’re healthy.”

Litrell, wearing a Maga-style red cap reading “Make Austin Weird Again,” is a bartender in Texas’ capital city. At least he used to be. The restaurant where Litrell works cut his shift to five hours a week, from 35. He started getting unemployment.

The pandemic has caused an overreaction of fear and an overreach of government power, Litrell said, and that was what brought him to the demonstration.

“It’s sad how easily, with the snap of a finger, they’ll just shut down society, and it’s even more sad that most of the people just acquiesce,” he said.

The modest crowd at the “You Can’t Close America” rally was proudly defiant of the local and state stay-at-home orders they were violating simply by assembling. Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order states that all Texans shall “minimize social gatherings,” and city and county officials in Austin have required people to wear face coverings in public.

A few of the demonstrators wore masks, but most did not. Not Litrell. And not Jax Weaver, 33, an out-ofwork Austin photographer who went to the protest with her 7-year-old daughter.

“I’m not worried about catching the virus,” Weaver said. “If we did catch the virus, I feel that we’re healthy enough to fight it. And I think it would help us build immunity.”

The rally rode a wave of similar protests at statehouses and in city streets this past week.