'Greenwich Patriots' part of a national movement
“Do you love freedom?”
I was driving by Greenwich Hospital when I first noticed one of the red, white, and blue signs that had been appearing in town over the past two weeks, most of them now gone. The question startled me.
While these signs were on display, three people were arrested, each charged with sixth-degree larceny — a petty theft charge — for removing a sign. The three stolen signs were in different parts of town, and the three persons arrested apparently had no connection to one another.
Did these arrestees not love freedom? Or did they feel free to remove the signs because they considered them signposts on a road that leads to un-freedom?
In another incident where the perpetrator has not been identified, one of the signs was vandalized in a way that transforms the question: “Do you love fascism?”
The stolen and vandalized signs belong to a group that calls itself “Greenwich Patriots.” This is the same group that put up signs in June with a more specific message:
“Stand Up Greenwich. Unmask Our Children.
Ban Critical Race Theory. Protect Medical Freedom.
Attend Board of Education Meeting, June 17 at 7 p.m.”
At a June 14 Flag Day rally at Greenwich Town Hall, members of the group held up signs with related messages: “Unmask Our Kids, They Are Not At Risk”; “No Vaccine Mandates”; “Protect Medical Freedom”; “My Body, My Choice.”
These so-called patriots — camouflaged as a grassroots groundswell of concerned parents — are not unique to Greenwich. In recent months, groups with identical messaging — no mask mandates, no vaccination requirements, and a ban on teaching critical race theory — have overwhelmed boards of education and city councils throughout the country, even at meetings when such items are not on the agenda. Their ultimate goal is to take over as many boards of education and local governments as they can.
“The path to save the nation is very simple,” former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said in a May podcast. “It’s going to go through the school boards.”
This anti-mask, anti-vaccine messaging, combined with the demand for a ban on critical race theory, is part of an orchestrated national strategy that seeks to harness discontent with pandemic restrictions, existing anti-vaxxer distrust of vaccines, and white anxiety over the country’s changing demographics. The intent is to channel these different sources of restlessness in a focused way, thereby creating a potent political weapon for use in the midterm elections, and beyond.
Funded and promoted by a network of right-wing groups such as the Center for Renewing America, founded by former Trump Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, these local groups follow a national playbook.
From the beginning, former President Donald Trump made the pandemic a matter of politics, not public health. His response to COVID-19 was to become a friend of the virus, helping it spread by calling upon Americans to not only resist public health guidelines and mandates, but to also mock public health officials. This messaging gave his followers license to break free from the shackles of government regulation in the service of overthrowing the “deep state.”
Such is the nature of MAGA freedom.
When the murder of George Floyd gave renewed meaning to the Black Lives Matter movement, bringing White and Black America closer together, the Trump administration took measures to knock down existing bridges across the racial divide and prevent new ones from being built. They took aim at the very concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
To justify existing white power structures, they needed a monster. Delving into obscure corners of academia in search of this creature, they discovered something called Critical Race Theory. And since few people had ever heard of the beast, it was the perfect bogeyman for true patriots to strike down. It could become whatever needed to be struck down to reverse the course of social justice. It allowed for the protection of systemic racism through denial of its existence.
Such is the nature of MAGA patriotism.
On Jan. 6 we saw the MAGA patriots exercise their freedom. We saw how scary it is when, in Orwellian fashion, love of freedom becomes love of fascism.
Beware the signs of these times.
https://www.greenwichtime.com/columnist/article/Alma-Rutgers-opinion-Greenwich-Patriots-16368274.php#photo-21147255