Covid-19 coronavirus: The right-wing groups behind the US anti-lockdown protests

At an anti-lockdown protest in Richmond, the capital of Virginia, last week, demonstrators wielded signs saying "I'm essential" and "Let me work".

The wording for those signs was not entirely spontaneous.

It was suggested in a "planning guide" provided by FreedomWorks, a conservative group based in Washington advocating for less government, and with links to the Tea Party.

It is just one of a number of organisations in the background seeking to assist the wave of United States demonstrations.

Others include pro-gun groups, anti-abortion campaigners, donors and political operators, some with a direct link to US President Donald Trump.

So many lessons to learn from Singapore but first and foremost, don’t let your guard down. Even with testing capabilities, world class public health, and low cases, every country is still at risk. https://t.co/1doHvKk96V

— Karen Grépin (@KarenGrepin) April 28, 2020

Many internet domain names associated with the protests have been snapped up by such groups. Three pro-gun activist brothers have registered some of them.

"ReOpen Mississippi", belongs to a PR agency based just outside Washington, which has several former employees working in the Trump Administration.

It all raises the question of whether the protests are really a spontaneous outpouring of frustration.

Or are they what shadowy American political operatives call "astroturfing" - inventing a seemingly grassroots movement to promote your agenda?

Are Republican puppet-masters in Washington, desperate to reopen the economy, really pulling the strings?

US President Trump received more than a dozen warnings about the coronavirus outbreak in daily briefings in January and February, but continued to downplay the virus' threat and severity, the Washington Post reports https://t.co/w3UKvJDDLa

— CNN International (@cnni) April 28, 2020

Not so, according to Noah Wall, vice president of FreedomWorks, which has a staff of 40 in the capital.

"Our role has been to support, rather than to organise," Wall said.

"We're stuck here [in Washington] so we're not actually on the ground. It is activist driven, activist led. However, we can act as a clearing house.

"Beginning last Monday we started to get calls from activists saying they wanted to protest, and could we assist. We're absolutely interested in helping them. We're working to make sure they do it in a responsible way."

Its planning guide for activists, marked "confidential," includes tips like bringing unemployment slips to protests, targeting state capitol buildings and promoting events as much as possible on social media using the hashtag ReopenAmerica.

$95m rescue package for locked-down zoos, aquariums https://t.co/bGxxKiCC9F

— The Sydney Morning Herald (@smh) April 28, 2020

Stephen Moore, its economic adviser, has just been appointed to Trump's task force for reopening the country. He was previously an adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign.

Another well-funded and well-connected group playing a support role is Convention of States, which seeks to limit the power of the federal government and balance the budget.

The group's president Mark Meckler, who was a leading figure in the Tea Party, said the protests were what they appeared to be, a spontaneous and "organic" movement, and not some "vast Right-wing conspiracy".

He said: "We are not organising protests, we are not facilitating protests. We can't tell people what to do even if we wanted to."