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An Open Letter to Those Ridiculing the Protesters
My Friends:
I’ve spoken to a number of you over the past week. I’ve seen your expletive-filled social media posts. I’ve read your letters to the editor.
I understand your anger, frustration, and general incredulousness that some of your fellow citizens are violating stay-at-home orders to protest those very orders in numerous cities, including my home of Denver. And I know it doesn’t help that the President is encouraging these protests, many of which are thinly veiled “AstroTurf” Trump/MAGA rallies. I get it.
Therefore, I’m not writing this letter to dismiss or dispute your emotional reactions to these protests. Nor am I attempting to defend those protests.
What I AM asking you to do is to look beyond the protests, protesters, and organizers and try to focus on the message behind them. Because I’ve also spent the past few weeks talking to countless small-business owners, many of whom are diehard liberals who can’t stand the President and his supporters who attend these rallies. But they covertly and passionately agree with the protesters’ message that the government-imposed stay-at-home policies and forced business closures must end soon. Otherwise, these small-business owners are ruined…financially, psychologically, and spiritually.
