Critics Appalled Trump Adviser Compared Gun-Packing White Guys To Rosa Parks

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Critics were reeling after right-wing White House adviser and economist Stephen Moore compared gun-toting white guys protesting COVID-19 safety measures to Rosa Parks and her historic battle for racial equality.

The comments were particularly galling because Moore once crowed that Donald Trump was evicting a black family (the Obamas) from public housing (the White House) in a dig widely reviled as racist.

Moore told various publications Friday that those protesting COVID-19 social distancing measures, many of them Trump supporters and some packing guns, were just like Parks, the black activist icon who launched a battle for racial justice in 1955 after refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white passenger.

When challenged about Moore’s comment Saturday at his press briefing, Trump dodged the question and claimed he didn’t know what Moore said. But he agreed with Moore that there was a “lot of injustice” regarding regulations intended to help stem the surge of COVID-19.

The President gets a chance to distance himself from Stephen Moore’s Rosa Parks statements and doesn’t take it pic.twitter.com/XSLYgha7n6

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) April 18, 2020

Some opposed to COVID-19 safety measures have also compared their struggle with stay-at-home restrictions to the plight of Jewish teenage Holocaust victim Anne Frank, who hid in her home for two years until she was captured by the Nazis.

Comedian Patton Oswalt quickly turned that one around:

Anne Frank spent 2 years hiding in an attic and we’ve been home for just over a month with Netflix, food delivery & video games and there are people risking viral death by storming state capital buildings & screaming, “Open Fuddruckers!”

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) April 18, 2020

no the quarantine is not the same as anne frank hiding from the nazis in the secret annex for two years, i am begging you to shut the fuck up

— samantha✡️🏳️‍🌈🌹🔥 (@koshersemite) April 19, 2020

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

.@StephenMoore is a dangerous charlatan and fool. He calls the protesters he’s egging on, modern-day Rosa Parks. Seems he knows less about history than he does about economics. #coronavirus

— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) April 18, 2020

I don’t know who needs to hear this.

But the right to eat inside an Applebee’s should not be and never compared to Rosa Parks and the Civil Right’s Movement.

No innocent person got lynched by a racist mob because you couldn’t get fucking Fiesta Lime Chicken.

— Solomon Balaam-Reed (@ReedBalaam) April 19, 2020

Rosa Parks showed genuine courage in risking her life to pursue equal justice in an era of violent, racist mobs who terrorized and lynched black Americans. How arrogant and ignorant it is for @StephenMoore to try to equate his Trump-fueled mobs with her. https://t.co/zbZL5nfdlO

— Lisa Graves (@thelisagraves) April 18, 2020

Dear protesters:

You’re not Rosa Parks.

You’re not Anne Frank.

You’re that infectious dead guy in the overalls at the gas station store in Zombieland. Go the fuck home.

— BrinaStarler (@BrinaStarler) April 19, 2020

A guy who said Trump’s first act as prez was kicking a black family (the Obamas) out of public housing says right-wing activists protesting social distancing measures to protect the public from a deadly virus are like Rosa Parks.

Just let that one set in. https://t.co/IJt23zUtXC

— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) April 18, 2020

When Rosa Parks wouldn’t give up her seat on a bus in 1955, she wasn’t risking the lives of every person within six feet of her. Just saying.

— Nicholas Ponticello (@NickPonticello) April 19, 2020

#RosaParks couldn’t eat where she wanted, sit where she wanted, get jobs she was qualified for or vote. The right-wing protesters incited by #Trump demand the right to endanger everyone so they lawn fertilizer and get their roots dyed. #Coronavirus https://t.co/CxjA50a9Fx

— Maya Wiley (@mayawiley) April 18, 2020

Stephen Moore is a despicable, ignorant ass who insults generations of suffering that led to the courage and sacrifice of Rosa Parks and many many more. Yet another reflection of Trump’s vile admiration of low life,unqualified,zealot morons! #VoteBlueNoMatterWho

— Charlie Adler (@charlie_adler) 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

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

Well, they’re close to Rosa Parks. They would have been driving the bus. https://t.co/GIC52px7RA

— Peter Sagal (@petersagal) April 18, 2020

Stephen Moore calls them “modern-day Rosa Parks.” But Parks desired different freedoms.

These folk want the freedom to infect, like they have wanted the freedom to enslave, lynch, deport, exclude, rob. They have always protested the “loss of liberties.” https://t.co/oJQqmuU4Nm

— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) April 18, 2020

I bet Rosa Parks knew how to spell constitution. pic.twitter.com/E5uklkMvbX

— (((Sᴄʀᴜ̈ᴇɢɢS))) (@scrueggs) April 19, 2020

Moore is a member of President Donald Trump’s get-back-to-work council and part of a coalition of conservatives called “Save Our Country,” working against business shutdowns and stay-at-home measures aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19. He dropped out of consideration to serve on the Federal Reserve Board last year amid concerns about his qualifications and mounting opposition to his controversial comments about women and race.

His dig about the Obamas and his awkward explanation can be seen on “Firing Line” here:

.@StephenMoore explains his 2016 joke about Donald Trump moving into the White House and kicking “a black family out of public housing.” Moore says, “That is a joke I always made,” adding he didn’t mean it “like a black person” lived there. “I shouldn’t have said it,” he says. pic.twitter.com/9EO9JzBgtW

— Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow) April 30, 2019

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