The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally will be held from August 7th-16th this year. It is interesting to contrast the media’s coverage of this rally with the coverage of the violent protests in various cities across the country.
Townhall posted an article on Saturday about the Sturgis Rally noting:
About a quarter-million motorcycle riders are expected to descend upon the town of Sturgis, South Dakota, taking part in the 10-day annual rally that kicked off on Friday. The rally is not a left-wing protest, so the media is criticizing attendees for not wearing facemasks and participating in a large gathering amid the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
The mainstream media and even medical officials have decided that the best way to avoid contracting the Wuhan coronavirus is to participate in left-wing protests. Crossing back and forth over the border between Mexico and the United States is seemingly another harmless exercise. But when a large gathering doesn’t fit into the media’s list of liberal-approved activities, the press castigates participants for venturing outside during the pandemic.
As expected, all the usual suspects are running hit pieces about the rally being a superspreader event. The double standard at this point must be apparent to even the most casual of media consumers.
While many in the town favored postponing the rally this year due to the Wuhan coronavirus, many others in town, including local business owners, were glad to see rallygoers arrive on schedule.
South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem was among those supportive of the rally.
“I trusted my people, they trusted me, and South Dakota is in a good spot in our fight against COVID-19. The #Sturgis motorcycle rally starts this weekend, and we’re excited for visitors to see what our great state has to offer!” Gov. Noem tweeted on Thursday.
Appearing on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle earlier this week, Gov. Noem pointed out how the media wrongly predicted a large surge in coronavirus cases following President Trump’s rally at Mount Rushmore for the Fourth of July holiday.
The article at Townhall concludes:
The 250,000 expected attendees will be around half the size of last year’s turnout. If it was 250,000 people riding into town on Vespas and calling to defund the police, the media would be praising them for their courage.
The New York Times has a different viewpoint (as expressed in an article August 7):
Save for a few hard-to-spot hand-sanitizer stations, it could have been any other major festival in pre-pandemic times.
“Screw Covid I went to Sturgis,” read a black T-shirt amid a sea of Harley Davidson and Trump 2020 outfits sported by the throng of people walking along Main Street. Their gear did not include face masks, and social distancing guidelines were completely ignored.
South Dakota is among several states that did not put in place a lockdown, and state officials have not required residents to wear masks, giving attendees who rode in from outside the state fewer restrictions than they may have had back home.
…Still, Nelson Horsley, 26, of Rapid City, S.D., said he expects there will be a rise in coronavirus cases in the area once the rally concludes next weekend. But he said he didn’t feel the need to wear a mask while walking around downtown Friday afternoon. He compared the virus to getting the seasonal flu.
“I haven’t seen anyone out here wear a mask so it kind of feels like it defeats the purpose,” he said, to wear a mask himself.
What if there isn’t a rise in coronavirus cases after the rally? What does that tell us about what we have been doing to end the virus?
The article at Townhall notes:
“Not only do we have one of the lowest death rates, we’ve got about 40 people in the hospital today statewide, our infection rates are low, our job losses are low, our economy is doing better than virtually any other state, and I think it’s a real testimony to what could have been possible in other states, but those governors just made the wrong decisions,” Noem told Ingraham.
Experience tells us that if there are even two cases of coronavirus as a result of this rally, they will be shouted about by the mainstream media. We need to pay attention to see what actually happens.