Many reports on these Republican protests against stay-at-home orders are comparing them to the Tea Party, and that's a fair point.

But to *me*, this whole thing feels more like the Trump campaign in 2016 than the Tea Party in 2009. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1252282207231791113

2016 is the better reference point for right now than 2009, because in 2016 Russian propaganda (working in concert with Republican organizations like the NRA) actually fomented real life "protests" in America.

Yes, Russia helped Trump win in 2016 but their real goal was just to tear America apart and shake our faith in democracy and each other.

They even convinced some people to go out to real life events and do things like put effigies of Hillary into cages on the back of a truck.

2016 Russian propaganda worked by exploiting partisan and racial divides that already exist here, by making Americans feel like we're enemies with each other.

That sure sounds a lot like what's happening right now with these protests against stay-at-home orders...

In 2016 NRA, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Prince/DeVos family, and Trump all helped spread content that was created from Russian troll farms and spread on outlets like RT.

Here's a story about how much money the NRA got from Russia: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/11/nra-russia-money-guns-516804

All those same people are pushing the protests now. DeVos helped fund one in Michigan, gun groups are involved in all of them, and Rush/Trump have been encouraging the protesters from their bully pulpits.

It doesn't matter if Russia is helping encourage these protests now.

What matters is that Republican leaders are following the exact same playbook Russia used to tear America apart in 2016 and they're doing it even though over 40k Americans are already dead from this plague.

Sorry, I just had to get that thread off my chest.

Whoever is organizing these protests, they only have one goal and it's not about reopening anything, it's about tearing the country apart so that Trump and the corrupt interests behind him can seize more power for themselves.

Updating this thread now that the research is showing bot networks were behind at least half of all the "reopen" tweets. https://twitter.com/businessinsider/status/1263836924768399361