Following Thursday’s loud but peaceful protests at Michigan’s statehouse, the Left demonizes citizens exercising their Constitutional rights.

On Thursday, with more than 30 million Americans now unemployed, hundreds protesters in Michigan converged on the state capitol to protest what many see as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “excessive” stay-at-home orders.

Since issuing the first state-wide stay-at-home order, as more than half the state’s counties have had less than 10 COVID-related death (to date), Whitmer has faced considerable backlash throughout her state.

During Thursday’s protest, “protesters held signs, waved American flags and even carried firearms, while some chanted ‘Let us in!’ and ‘This is the people’s house, you cannot lock us out,'” reported NBC News.

While the number of those carrying firearms was small, Democrats in the statehouse and in the media decided to draw attention it.

NBC News ran the headline: “Hundreds of protesters, some carrying guns in the state Capitol, demonstrate against Michigan’s emergency measures“; while the Washington Post was more sensationalist, using the term “armed protestors” in its headline—implying that all of the protesters were “armed.”

Even the DrudgeReport, mistakenly viewed by some as a “conservative” news aggregator, posted a link to the NBC News article with the words “Armed protesters storm Michigan Capitol.”

Then, to further demonize the protesters, social-media influencer and self-described LGBT-rights advocate Rob Gill (who has a #StayTheF*ckHome banner on his Twitter page), tweeted a short clip of video of the protest taken inside the capitol building, stating:

Multiple armed gunmen storm Michigan’s State House, State police are protecting @GovWhitmer and blocking the gunmen from gaining access to the house floor.

This is America in the age of Trump.

This was then recaptured in a tweet by actor Daniel Newman, who shared Gill’s quote with his own 946k followers.

Think about how harshly #BlackLivesMatter & #AbolishICE activists were debased, called rioters, & treated as a threat to society.

Now watch & examine how this MAGA-armed rushing of a state legislature is treated.

This is for those who still think racial privilege is a fantasy.

Despite Gill’s and, as well, AOC’s comments, many on Twitter (captured via Twitchy) corrected them.

Although Michigan has emerged as a COVID-‘hotspot,’ with the third-highest number of COVID-related fatalities (after New York and New Jersey), the majority of Michigan’s COVID-related cases and deaths are concentrated in Wayne County, where Detroit is located, leaving much of the state less impacted—and not working.

Since Gov. Whitmer issued her stay-at-home orders in early April, more than 376,000 people have joined a Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine Facebook page, and 324,000 have signed a recall petition to remove her from office.

Despite the protests during the day, they didn’t stop Whitmer from issuing a new set of executive orders anyway, citing “even broader emergency powers,” reported the Washington Post.