Wednesday on ABC’s “The View,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) declared the “racist and misogynistic” lockdown protesters opposing her order were “calling for violence.”
Whitmer said, “Well, I do think that the fact of the matter is these protests, you know, in a perverse way make it likelier that we’re going to have to stay in a stay-at-home posture. The whole point of them supposedly is they don’t want to be doing that, and that’s why I’m asking that everyone with a platform call on people to do the right thing. You know, these have been really political rallies where people come with Confederate flags and Nazi symbolism and calling for violence. This is not appropriate in a global pandemic, but it’s certainly not an exercise of democratic principles where we have free speech. This is calls to violence. This is racist and misogynistic, and I ask that everyone who has a platform uses it to call on people to observe the best practices by the CDC, and to stop encouraging this behavior because it only makes it that much more precarious for us to try to reengage our economy which is what everyone says they want us to be able to do.”
When asked about threats to her, Whitmer said, “Well, I would be not truthful if I said it didn’t bother me. It certainly does. I’m fortunate that the Michigan State Police is an incredibly talented professional organization that oversees the security of myself and my family and I’m grateful for that, but the fact of the matter is the Michigan capitol is one of the few capitols in the country where people can come with bearing arms, and what we saw last week and what we anticipate seeing tomorrow is those arms being used to intimidate others, being brandished in a way that is to strike fear into others, and that is not legal activity. So this is a terribly concerning development in that we have legislators who are showing up to work wearing bulletproof vests. That is disenfranchising thousands of people in our state if their legislator doesn’t feel safe to go to work and do what their job is. No one should stand in our way of doing our jobs. I respect people’s right to dissent, but that does not extend to endangering other people’s lives and we take it very seriously.”
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