COVID conspiracy theorists. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Donald Trump. Beginning in early April , there were protests in several U. The protests made international news [ 6 ] [ 7 ] and were widely condemned as unsafe and ill-advised, [ 8 ] although some political figures expressed support for the protests. President Donald Trump. By May 1, , there had been demonstrations in more than half of the states; many governors began to take steps to lift the restrictions as daily new infections began decreasing due to social distancing measures.
The anti-lockdown protests were first spawned with a nationwide call in mid-March by an online Facebook page by the name of "American Revolution 2. The page quickly grew to over , users in less than a week and then was removed from Facebook for violations of terms of service. The group then set up 53 Facebook groups named "AR2" to run protests at the capitol of every state as well as Los Angeles and Chicago.
This page and the many groups were led by Naperville, Illinois native Josh Ellis. On April 30, , at pm CST all 53 groups were deleted simultaneously from Facebook for violating terms and conditions. Due to the widespread notoriety and media coverage of the May 1 planned protest, many other groups started smaller protests prior to the date. One of the first protests to take place was in Michigan on April 15, It was organized via a Facebook group called "Operation Gridlock", which was created by the Michigan Conservative Coalition.
A spokesman for the Michigan Conservative Coalition encouraged groups in other states to copy the Operation Gridlock wording and templates. Protesters in numerous other states said they were inspired by Michigan, and they used Michigan's material on their own websites, Facebook groups, and Reddit pages to promote their protests. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer falsely claimed that the Michigan Freedom Fund was a party to this event and that it was funded in part by the DeVos family, but a spokesman said the family had nothing to do with the protests.
The Trump campaign declined to answer whether it was directly involved with organizing the protest in Michigan, but key protest organizers who did identify themselves were Meshawn Maddock, the wife of Republican state representative Matt Maddock and a member of the national advisory board for Women for Trump , and Marian Sheridan, who serves as a vice chair on the Michigan Republican Party , both founding members of Michigan Conservative Coalition.
