Author: Sam Buisman
Picketers marched around the State Capitol to protest the extent of Wisconsin's coronavirus response on Sunday.
Roughly 60 protestors circled the Capitol building in protest of the reach and length of the state's Safer-At-Home order, demanding the state to allow increased economic activity. Demonstraters mostly adhered to social distancing guidelines by marching in small, distanced groups while carrying signs with slogans like “Open Wisconsin,” “Don't Kill My Business,” and “Let My People Go.”
Protestors like Jeremy Matthews, who has been put out of two jobs due to the Safer-At-Home order and unable to file for unemployment, said that the march was just as much about protecting individual liberty as it was a demand for re-opening the economy.
“I'm concerned about the freedom for our future generations, the freedom that my grandparents and uncles and brothers have fought to defend,” said Matthews, “because our forefathers believed that freedom was worth dying for, and I believe that too.”
This protest comes after Governor Tony Evers extended the Safer-At-Home order from its original end-date of April 24 to May 26. The extension received praise from healthcare experts across Wisconsin as necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19.
March co-organizer Jeffrey Horn stressed that the protest wasn't intended as a rejection of the seriousness of COVID-19 but rather as an objection to the measure and specifics of the state's response.
For many demonstrators, like Debbie Quilling, their anger stemmed from what they saw as arbitrary decisions by the Governor to determine which businesses are essential and which are not.
“The governor, and governors of all the states that are doing like this, are acting like dictators,” said Quilling, “and they are picking and choosing which businesses can and cannot make it.”
Others, like Sean Beck, took specific issue with churches being ordered to close.
“Churches have been harassed by law enforcement,” said Beck, “but yet you can go crowd into Walmart and buy movies and Mountain Dew and pizzas.”
Protestors were not concerned about contracting or spreading the coronavirus by participating in the march. Horn pointed out that the protest was organized with social distancing norms in mind.
“This is simply a walk, and it is one of the sanctioned things in the original order itself,” said Horn. “So, there's nothing wrong with walking.”
Similar protests have sprung up in other cities in Wisconsin and across the country.
According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll published Sunday, almost 60% of Americans are more concerned that the US will move too quickly in removing its coronavirus restrictions than they are over the economic impacts that the restrictions will have.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, there are currently 4,346 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Wisconsin, 361 of which are in Dane County.
