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A protest movement is taking hold targeting states that have extended social-distancing rules, closed schools, and restricted access to large religious gatherings. And its being fed by loyalists and political allies of President Donald Trump.

At issue are seemingly contradictory directives from Trumpwho said on Tuesday that his team was in the process of drafting new guidelines that would allow some states to bring critical industries back to work, possibly this monthand public health officials and many governors, who have urged people to stay home as the number of coronavirus-related deaths continue to rise.

The tension has prompted Republican lawmakers and supporters of the president to publicly call for Americans to defy their local orders, claiming they infringe on constitutional rights. On Monday, Richard Grenell, acting director of the Office of National Intelligence and the U.S. ambassador to Germany, posted a photo of the Bill of Rights on Instagram with a title Signed Permission Slip to Leave Your House. Below the post, in the caption, Grenell wrote, Love this! A reporter tweeted the post after its publishing saying, Seems the top US intelligence chief ADNI @RichardGrenell isnt a fan of the stay at home orders. Grenell responded, Seems Grenell is a fan of the Constitution to me.

Grenells post foreshadows a major political battle line on the horizon. Republican operatives say the burgeoning movement against coronavirus restrictions could end up stressing an already heavily stressed body politic even further, with conservative activists challenging their governors in increasingly dramatic fashion. Former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), who is a close White House ally, said he felt the country was nearing a tipping point.

I think it could be a combination of politics, misinformation, economic hardship, emotion/anxiety, and well intentioned civil disobedience, Kingston wrote. The liquor stores and dispensaries are open but I cant buy gun!

The calls for defiance have grown so much so this week that officials inside the Trump administration coronavirus task force have begun discussing how to reconcile the growing discomfort of the president and his allies while also ensuring more Americans do not further contract the virus. One official told The Daily Beast that there is concern among task force officials that once they loosen the social-distancing guidelines for some portions of the country, Americans living in hot-spot areas will follow suit even if theyve been asked to remain at home.

Already, protests against social-distancing guidelines, stay-at-home orders, and other public safety measures have been bubbling up in states across the country. In Idaho, anti-government activists encouraged gatherings around Easter. Conservative activists in Oklahoma are planning a get back to work rally at their state capitol on Wednesday. Roughly 75 protesters met outside the Ohio statehouse on Monday to protest restrictions, with several carrying the Dont Tread on Me flags that became ubiquitous at Tea Party rallies.

On Tuesday, meanwhile, about 100 people rallied against the restrictions in Raleigh, North Carolina, with one protester arrested.

The North Carolina opposition has organized around ReopenNC, a Facebook group with more than 25,000 members. Ashley Smith, a co-founder of the group, started ReopenNC with two friends after hearing a rumor that Gov. Roy Cooper (D) planned to extend the states stay-at-home order through June. It appears that rumor was wrongthe order is still set to expire on April 19. But beyond that hiccup, epidemiologists and other public health experts have cautioned that the national economy cant begin to recover without a massive increase in testing and infection tracing capabilities. Nevertheless, Smith simply wants businesses to open again.

When its my time to go, Gods going to call me home, Smith said. I think that to live is inherently to take risks. Im not concerned about this virus any more than I am about the flu.

Smith supports Trumps recent insinuation that he may forcibly reopen states whose governors continue to support stay-at-home orders, though its not clear that Trump actually has the power to do any such thing. We are not promised a pathogen-free existence, Smith said. We do not have a constitutional right to not get a virus.

In Michigan, backlash to government-authored safety guidelines and measures may be the most pronounced. On Wednesday, critics of Gov. Gretchen Whitmers (D) coronavirus restrictions rallied on the steps state capitalwhileothers socially distanced within their cars. In a protest dubbed Operation Gridlock, they aim to lock down whatever traffic remains in the capital city of Lansing with their vehicles.

Thats basically what shes done to our state: gridlock us, Rosanne Ponkowski, one of the rallys organizers, said of Whitmer.

We're tired of not being able to buy the things we need, go to hairdressers, get our hair done, one protester, Brenda Esman, told Fox News.

Ponkowski, the president of the pro-Trump Michigan Conservative Coalition, said she got the idea for a protest while sitting at home under the stay-at-home order. Ponkowski was also frustrated after hearing from a relative in Florida about that states comparatively looser coronavirus rules.

We were sitting around wondering what to do, because our state is going down the toilet, Ponkowski said.

The Lansing protest has been embraced on Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine, a growing Facebook group with more than 320,000 members. Like other critics of the current social distancing requirements, Ponkowski points to the national coronavirus death rates, which have failed to meet the direst predictions, as proof that its time to relax stay-at-home orders.

They were predicting huge numbers of people falling ill and dying, and that wasnt the case, Ponkowski said.

The open acts of defiance arent just being embraced by fringe activists mobilized through social media posts. Elected officials have called for pushing aside public safety experts in the name of remedying societal fallout. In Texas, the House Freedom Caucus has called on the governor to lift the state's stay-at-home order. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) scoffed at restrictions other states had placed on activities such as going to beaches and churchwhile leaving the suggestion that others should do the same. And a top aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said it was time to not comply with the commonwealths governor, Andy Beshear, over a plan to record and quarantine churchgoers during Easter Sunday.

The public demonstrations of frustration and resistance have begun to draw parallels to the Tea Party protests that popped up during the early months of Barack Obamas presidency. The circumstances are far differenta reactionary movement to bank bailouts and the first African-American president versus resentment towards strict public health guidelines. But the theme of individualism versus statism is a through line that GOP operatives believe could be similarly galvanizing on the right.

There is a natural tension between the government taking actions to protect public safety and citizens feeling like their rights are being limited, said Matt Mackowiak, a GOP operative in Texas. We've seen it on the religious services aspect of this. There are questions about the police power ability of the government to begin with and whether any of these requirements that local, state, and municipal govts are even enforceable. I think there is a disconnect between the way the government is looking at this and the way individuals are looking at this.

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Trumpists Urging People to Leave Their Homes to Own the Libs - The Daily Beast

STAFF and residents at a Chester village care home celebrated Easter with an Easter egg hunt and a themed tea party.

Residents in Barchesters Iddenshall Hall care home in Clotton, Tarporley, enjoyed an eggs-tensive range of Easter activities, enjoying a fabulous Easter tea party with after party games.

Some residents enjoyed arranging cheery spring flowers and Easter wreaths with flowers and foliage gathered in the grounds of the care home's estate.

Operations manager Farai Hanyane said: As always, weve all been looking forward to Easter.

"Its such a nice time of the year the residents love all the colourful Easter eggs and thoroughly enjoyed the tea party with games and all the themed trimmings. Its really been an eggs-cellent day!

The care home team is playing its part in the wider care sector and supporting the NHS where possible.

It is currently still taking admissions for those that need care in the next four weeks. For more information, call 01829 732454.

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Chester village care home residents and staff celebrate Easter with themed tea party and Easter egg hunt - The Chester Standard

WASHINGTON The tea party of the left never materialized.

While the election of Barack Obama triggered a takeover of the Republican Party by its more radical elements and eventually paved the way for Donald Trump, Democrats have taken a different route during Trump's presidency and have mostly defeated their populists at the ballot box.

The collapse of Bernie Sanders, who ended his presidential bid Wednesday, served as the latest example of the Democrats' rejecting calls for a political revolution. It followed a series of intra-party races since 2018 that have, with some prominent exceptions, been dominated by moderate Democrats in the mold of the apparent presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

The different trajectories highlight an asymmetry between the two parties and shed light on why Democrats have avoided the ideological takeover by their base that Republicans succumbed to in the Obama era. Democrats are riven by a generational divide between younger progressives and older moderates that isn't mirrored on the Republican side. The GOP base is more homogeneous, and its older voters embraced the disruptive approach of the hard right.

The election of Obama fueled demographic fears about a rising coalition of social liberals and racially diverse voters, triggering a primal dissatisfaction among conservatives with party leaders they saw as failing to fight hard enough. That atmosphere was ripe for a blustery outsider like Trump, whom they embraced as a wrecking ball. After he took office, Democrats similarly faced calls from their activists to remake the party in a populist image, but they decided not to heed them.

The narrative of a left-wing equivalent of the tea party was "overstated," said Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist who was an architect of Pete Buttigieg's come-from-behind victory in Iowa.

"What we saw in the 2018 election is that Democrats won on progressive platforms, but they were nowhere near the plank of Bernie Sanders or the Democratic Socialists of America. That's not where voters are. That's not where all but a few of the new members of Congress are politically," she said.

"The media is obsessed with covering people like AOC, but the reality is most of the Democratic Party is more like Chrissy Houlahan," she said, referring to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Houlahan, D-Pa.

Progressive strategist Karthik Ganapathy attributed the Trump-era left's comparably fewer successes to the fact that it lacks the money or a powerful media vessel that the right had to advance its agenda.

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"There is no Fox News of the left. And the tea party is better funded. FreedomWorks and Justice Democrats don't operate on the same footing. That's a really core difference," he said, referring to the conservative and progressive activist groups. "If you'd had a similar funding scale on the left as you had on the right in the wake of Obama's election, you might be seeing 20 AOCs in the House. And all of a sudden you have a Freedom Caucus."

That level of funding and organization creates a different attitude within each party toward its activists, he said.

"The Republican establishment is really scared of its base. Democrats are disdainful of theirs," Ganapathy said. "If a conservative group starts to go after a senator, they respond with real fear. The Democratic establishment's approach is to say you're too dumb to see the truth."

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After Obama's election, tea party insurgents won 2010 primaries from local races up to the Senate level. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah beat party-backed rivals. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Marco Rubio of Florida dispensed with Republican establishment figures and won their seats. House moderates like Bob Inglis of South Carolina were swept out, while others survived by channeling the tea party's anxiety.

While no credible tea party candidate emerged in 2012, leading to the presidential nomination of Mitt Romney, the project continued up and down the ballot and culminated in the election of Trump four years later.

But Democratic voters in Trump-era primaries have overwhelmingly chosen candidates styled more as pragmatists than ideologues, such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who defeated a Sanders-backed progressive, and new House members from California to Maine. Moderate Democrats coasted in Senate primaries, and some incumbents even went unchallenged.

The left's electoral successes in recent years have peaked in some House primaries in safe blue districts, such as the Bronx, with Ocasio-Cortez, and Boston, with Ayanna Pressley, in 2018 and the primary loss of anti-abortion rights Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois last month. But liberal challengers had little success in other House races or contests for higher office.

Last month, Henry Cuellar of Texas, one of the House's most conservative Democrats, defeated Sanders-backed Jessica Cisneros. And the rapid Democratic consolidation around Biden that stopped a surging Sanders was the clearest indication that the party establishment is winning the power struggle against the left.

The divide between the GOP's moderate and conservative wings was mostly about tactics. The Democratic primary season this year revealed a range of ideological disagreements in the party, most notably on voters' No. 1 issue, health care: whether to keep and expand the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, or put everyone in Medicare.

"The Republican establishment and tea party were not that far apart on policy and ideology, whereas there is some of that on the Democrats," said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican consultant who has worked on both sides of the divide, for the tea party group FreedomWorks and for establishment Republicans. "There are socialists. There is more of a disparity there."

Sometimes the tea party went overboard by nominating fringe candidates, like Christine O'Donnell of Delaware and Richard Mourdock of Indiana, for otherwise winnable seats that the party ended up losing. But overall its successes at purifying the ranks are the envy of many progressive activists.

Steinhauser said the tea party was effective because it highlighted issues that united the party, like cutting domestic spending and opposing Obamacare, and downplayed divisive ones at the time, such as immigration. The activist left has instead played up issues that split Democrats, like single-payer health care and a Green New Deal, which have drawn a backlash from older, suburban and moderate voters.

"The far left or progressive left they're not learning that lesson. Focus on the things that unify you," Steinhauser said. "Win first, then push the Congress and president on your left-wing agenda."

The generational schism runs deep. Democrats under 45 overwhelmingly voted for Sanders over Biden until the bitter end, even as other blocs switched. They were outnumbered by older voters, but as the years go by and they replace Baby Boomers at the ballot box, liberals will have their moment, some say.

"The ascendant Bernie-AOC wing of the Democratic Party truly is the future. It's just a matter of how quickly the transition comes," Ganapathy said. "The fact that it didn't happen in the year 2020 is not determinative of whether it will ever happen."

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No progressive tea party: Sanders' exit highlights asymmetry between the parties - NBC News

Donald J. Trump has perpetuated a fraud on the American people. It was assumed that he was competent. At his inauguration he stated: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

This president has never respected that oath for what it means to us as Americans. Abraham Lincoln said it best in his Gettysburg Address that this is a government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people. Paying no attention to law or American traditions, Donald Trump governs as though the United States of America is a government of Donald Trump, by Donald Trump and for Donald Trump.

Welcome to Donald Trumps fascist America! Democracy has been lost in America. This president, Donald J. Trump, and this White Nationalist Republican Tea Party have stolen our democracy. The evidence brought by the Democrats in their articles of Impeachment were overwhelming. While Trump claims the phone call with Ukranian President Volodymymr Zelensky was perfect, Purple Heart recipient Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindmans testimony makes clear that call was anything but perfect.

In that call, the President sought a quid pro quo relative to providing military assistance in exchange for dirt that would hurt Joe Biden. The actual transcript of that call, not the White House prepared summary, would show Trump broke the law. He was involving a foreign government on our election. That act required Congressional oversight, which the President sought to obstruct.

Yet, when the Democratic Party majority, a diverse panel, tried to hold this president accountable, they were undermined by a blind loyalty to Donald Trump and the (white) Republican Party. For the Republican Senate Majority to have not convicted him and removed him was certainly partisan. On a partisan basis, he was acquitted. It was partisan corruption. Partisan corruption undermines democracy. Partisan corruption enables fascism. The case against the President was clear.

What we have here is racist rule. What we have here is a white nationalist Republican Party denying constitutional rule to that very diverse Democratic Party. Mitch McConnell is playing the role of stealth Grand Wizard. For democracy to work, it must be based upon integrity not lies. The Republicans in both the House and the Senate lied when it came to Donald Trumps guilt. That is rule by thuggery not reason.

In 2016, Donald Trump was rejected by the majority of American voters. He lost by 3 million votes. That is not unimportant because we need to understand how Donald Trump won and what is the significance of that victory? He won for two reasons: 1) he was a birther and 2) the electoral college.

Many people think Donald Trump won in spite of bring a birther. No, he won a majority of the white vote because he was one of them. He talks like they talk. Like him, many of that majority believes in conspiracy theories. We do know this that majority who are Trump supporters are not offended by his racism. Many of them are low information voters, just like some would say he is a low information president. (He did not know the significance of Pearl Harbor.)

Trumps base are Fox News fans. Recall that Fox News is the No. 1 cable channel. It is the No. 1 cable channel because it gives them what they want, rather than provide more accurate information. Recall the older Fox News viewer in Grand Rapids who attended Congressman Justin Amashs town hall. She learned for the first time that the president had done something wrong.

While that white majority votes for Trump, a more educated minority of whites, generally, vote for Democrats. It is this more educated white minority, along with people of color who are the future of the country. This is the Obama coalition. Older generations of whites represent fewer and fewer voters. They are not Americas future.

The bad news is that a rejected candidate might get elected again. The majority rejected Donald Trumps racism. His sexism, his misogyny, his vulgar undignified behavior has been an embarrassment overseas. The electoral college was there to protect the former slave states. It needs to go. Otherwise, another rejected candidate will become president.

In conclusion two things stand out: Being a birther Donald Trump was in way above his head. A pandemic and an economic collapse will take more than a cheerleader and wishful thinker. Even as a performer, Donald Trump was not good at acting the part. As a con man he has no idea what to do.

If the loser becomes winner the election, he has less legitimacy. A majority of the American voters had determined Donald Trump to be unfit. So, what did we get from this rejected president? Someone more concerned about improving his bottom lines than saving lives, coronavirus be damned.

Robert Newby is professor emeritus of the department of sociology, anthropology and social at Central Michigan University

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Column: Tea party white nationalist corruption saves the president from removal - The Morning Sun

Like everybody else nowadays, Im lugging a heavy heart around in my chest. So I like to escape into the past now and again, and dream about how things might have been.

I would like to have been in Boston for the Tea Party for example, and I picture myself at the Bell In Hand Tavern, holding forth in front of my fellow Bostonians

Guys, forget the Boston Marathon, you couldnt finish it anyways. No, there are more important issues at hand, for whom the bell tolls. The Lymies are out to tax our tea! You heard me right, tax our tea without representation! I know you dont drink it, I cant stand it either, but when we can no longer afford to pay for our ladies tea parties, well, there will be hell to pay! So dang it, we need to throw a tea party of our own, and heres my idea hear me out! Let me buy the house a round, and hear me out!

When we leave the Bell In Hand Tavern tonight after last call, we strip down, paint each other with war paint to look like wild Mohawk Indians, and jump the three English cargo ships in our harbor. Now I see some of you wiping your mouths with your napkins to hide your smiles, but Im serious. Once aboard those cargo ships we throw the night watchman and all 90,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor!

One of the doubters raises his hand and shouts out, Thats the craziest idea I ever heard! I shout him down and buy him a beer to keep him quiet. Then I launch into my master plan from the top.

Now, listen up. There are 60 of us Mohawks and only three English ships. Twenty Mohawks board each ship at the stroke of midnight and start heaving chests of tea over the side, along with the night watchman.

Some lummox asks, So what do we do when English troops arrive to kill us Mohawks?

Of course I have the answer ready, and I deliver it with panache, lan and a Lager

When the English troops arrive to kill us Mohawks we will already be Bostonians again, and we will not quarter them, and what are they going to do? They will be out in the cold and we can at last tell Olde King George to go fly a kite to the moon!

Of course, what does happen when the English troops arrive we can discuss on another day

What we do know is that the Boston Tea Party worked its bazar magic on that December night in 1773, and the ladies of Boston were able to continue their private tea parties sans taxes. I will sign an affidavit to that statement, and this is where my short history of the Boston Tea Party comes to an end. I only wish I could have been there

Learn more about McAvoy Layne at http://www.ghostoftwain.com.

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Pine Nuts: A short history of the Boston Tea Party - Sierra Sun