As we watch scenes from Harrisburg echo protests across the country against shelter-in-place orders, seeing lots of derision & name calling of protesters as 'morons,' 'idiots,' etc. Obviously they are making bad choices that put their & their communities' lives at risk but 1/ https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1252265152063451137

it is so easy to blame the individuals on the ground & stop looking at the fact that these events are organized & individuals are mobilized by groups who are manipulating them & their economic anxieties for their own ends. The @washpo piece on the role three pro-gun brothers 2/

played in mobilizing 100s of thousands of social media followers is crucial here-- they are playing on themes long resonant with lots of Americans: local control, resistance against an overreaching state, individuals rights & freedom of movement and 3/: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/19/pro-gun-activists-using-facebook-groups-push-anti-quarantine-protests/

the fear that the government will "take" something away (rights, freedom, liberty etc). These are themes echoed in all our national myths & legends, the stories we tell our children in textbooks about colonial resistance, abolitionist movements, the civil rights movement 4/

Manipulating those cultural themes is effective. And everything we are doing to shut it down is reactive-- remove social media misinformation, shame the protesters, expose the organizers. I'm not saying we shouldn't do those things but until we figure out a proactive way to 5/

reach ordinary people on the ground in ways that reinforce their own sense of autonomy, freedom, resistance and all the things we have taught them to celebrate their entire lives, we are going to keep losing them to folks who frame their actions as heroic. We need serious 6/

proactive & preventative engagement with local communities across the country that isn't just about how "moronic" they are being but finds a way to inoculate them against manipulation by groups who exploit them for their own political gains. /end