A downstate lawmaker argues residents in his neck of the woods have had enough of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “public theater” in his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and are committed to getting back to their normal lives no matter what.
“The people down here have figured it out and they’re ready to go back to work,” state Rep. Chris Miller (R-Oakland) told the East Central Reporter. “There’s just so much propaganda. The governor seems to have one set of rules for some and a whole different set for everyone else.”
Miller admits he was front and center at a recent downstate protest rally where demonstrators demanded that the governor pull the plug on the statewide stay-at-home order he first enacted back in March and recently extended through the end of May.
At the same time as the Springfield rally, protesters were also demonstrating in front of a state office building in downtown Chicago where they made many of the same demands.
“People down here truly believe there needs to be a regional plan in Illinois that allows people who haven’t been as impacted by the virus to return to work and to resume their lives,” Miller said. “We’ve got counties down here that have zero coronavirus cases and their hospitals are empty. There’s been so much manipulation of information, but down here everyone knows everyone so that really doesn’t work.”
Miller said people have simply grown tired of all the fearmongering.
“Even with the new mandate requiring everyone to now wear masks in public, this virus has been circulating now for over two months and now all of a sudden we’ve reached the point where everyone has to wear a mask,” he said. “I really believe it’s all orchestrated to try to keep President (Donald) Trump from being re-elected.”
Miller said Pritzker has no one but himself to blame for the skepticism about his motivations.
“When the decisions you make are filled with hypocrisy, this is what happens,” he said. “Everyone was tolerant in the beginning, but now that they see it’s not the health care crisis that it was billed to be they’re ready to get back to life.”
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