Anti-protest bills tell of the growing right-wing freakout

I get how people whose nature + nurture led them into their mindsets. Not that that excuses this.

Since Trump’s inauguration in 2017, 21 states have passed nearly 50 laws to restrict protest. In many ways, the origins of this assault can be traced to a single event nearly 10 years ago: the police killing of a Black teenager named Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. His death and the protests that followed birthed the Black Lives Matter movement, a global reckoning with racism, policing, and surveillance.

State legislatures, many dominated by Republicans, have introduced over 250 anti-protest bills since the Ferguson Uprising often supported by the many of the same forces united against student protesters today: law enforcement, Republican leadership, pro-Israel lobbyists and right wing operatives.

“Americans seem to increasingly believe that protests are only legitimate and deserving of protection if they advance a message that we agree with,” says Elly Page, a senior legal advisor at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL). “If the right to protest isn’t protected for everyone, it isn’t protected for anyone.” - Mother Jones