Under the Cover of COVID

Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 4:00pm ET

Click Here for Recording

Featuring:

- Ben Lorber, PRA Research Analyst

- Cloee Cooper, PRA Research Analyst

- Tobita Chow, Director of Justice is Global, a project of People’s Action / People’s Action Institute

While Americans struggle to meet their basic needs and keep themselves and their families safe from the coronavirus, the U.S. Right is capitalizing on widespread distress and misinformation to advance a white supremacist agenda. Cramped quarters and poor health conditions leave incarcerated populations especially vulnerable to COVID-19 and a third of the country’s incarcerated population reside in jails administered by 3,081 county sheriffs (who are 99% men and 95% white). The Far Right is engaged in a bigoted call-and-response with the Trump administration, and provocateurs are consolidating anti-Chinese slurs, broader anti-Asian resentment, and antisemitic conspiracy theories into COVID-19 currency for right-wing media consumers.

PRA research analysts Lorber and Cooper and movement strategist Chow speak to our uniquely precarious present moment, examining the Right’s use of rhetoric, coalition-building, and opportunism to mobilize against a distracted public.