Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore faces backlash for recently comparing protesters defying stay-at-home orders in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
Moore, who is a member of the White House council to reopen the country, told The Washington Post in a Friday night report that the stay-at-home order protesters indicate “a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded” and that he likens them to Park.
“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” Moore said.
Moore was swiftly derided for his remarks shortly after the Post published its report.
Congratulations to Trump adviser Stephen Moore on a comment at once strikingly stupid and deeply offensive.
“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.” https://t.co/2V1mhWFDC9 pic.twitter.com/TJIa4EZnap— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 18, 2020
When people like Stephen Moore make comparisons to Ross Parks we should treat it as the cynical, calculated form of race baiting that it is. Enslavers said *they* were in fact the slaves. Segregationists adopted Civil Rights mvmt language to fight policies to help black people.
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) April 18, 2020
Could you have imagined the outcome if Rosa brought a gun to the bus?
White House adviser Stephen Moore repeatedly compared right-wing protesters who oppose coronavirus safety measures to Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon who fought for racial equality. https://t.co/u9ozzAtXpO
— Scott Huffman For Congress (@HuffmanForNC) April 18, 2020
Yes, Stephen Moore invoked Rosa Parks to praise those who violate stay-at-home guidelines, advocating for their revocation. Ironic, since the way this virus spreads makes such “protests" violent. (And he is on the White House council to “re-open" the U.S.) https://t.co/3OSKYg6bYo
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) April 18, 2020
Alas, unqualified Trump Fed picks comparing right-wing idiots to Rosa Parks is not at all a new thing, nor unique to Stephen Moore. Here's Judy Shelton, whose nomination is still pending before Senate, comparing a currency counterfeiter to Rosa Parks https://t.co/ECVKX2J16i
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) April 18, 2020
However, Moore’s comments to the Post weren’t the first to invoke Parks when discussing protesters defying stay-at-home orders.
In a video posted to a libertarian think tank’s YouTube page on Tuesday, Moore indicated that he’s assisting an effort to plan a “drive-in” to protest Wisconsin’s stay-at-home orders.
“They’re going to shut down the Capitol — shh, don’t tell anybody,” Moore said. “We need to be the Rosa Parks here and protest against these government injustices.”
Moore then predicted in the video that there will be “a lot more” of the stay-at-home order protests, before arguing that “this is a great time, gentleman and ladies, for civil disobedience.”
Moore’s latest remarks aren’t far off from the remarks President Trump made during Friday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing when he argued that Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia have done “too much” with social distancing and that the stay-at-home protesters in those states “seem to be very responsible people.”
Moore also told CBS in a Friday interview that the Trump administration should have begun the process to reopen the economy “a week or two ago.”
“I think we lean way too much in the direction of keeping the economy shut down to try to save every life, not realizing that we’re causing huge hardship for citizens — again, people at the bottom and businesses — and we’re going to suffer a big loss of living standards because of this,” Moore said.
