Josh Ellis, an organizer of American Revolution 2.0, called on state leaders to end COVID-19-related shutdowns and allow Americans to get back to work, church, and the people who are important in their lives.
Ellis shared his opinions on the “The Mark Meckler Show” podcast before the May 1 protests in certain areas of the country.
However, Ellis wasn’t always active in politics or government protests while raising five children and running a businesses. He started paying more attention to politics when the impeachment proceedings began and he saw what he called unconstitutional precedents being set, particularly with a lack of due process.
Ellis became involved, he said, after his father-in-law’s business shut down, he believed from government overreach. At that point he started to see Constitutional violations, in his opinion.
He perceived a “rising up of awareness,” he said. “People were waking up to what was going on in the government, at least on social media. I think Facebook is a good litmus test for the country.”
“I knew as citizens of the United States, we really had to start stepping up in a massive way.” Ellis said “I knew right away that from a tactical government perspective, we had to set a precedent equal to or greater than what the government was doing, to prevent this from ever happening again.”
He saw that models were forecasting 18 months to two years of rolling shutdowns, and knew that should never be acceptable again.
“I kept mentioning protests on state capitols on social media and someone finally said 'When?'”
He then created a meme on May 1 calling for a march on all state capitals, urging citizens to stand up against unconstitutional mandates. The meme went viral.
By April 8, he’d launched a Facebook page for American Revolution 2.0, claiming that he’d attracted thousands of followers in a matter of days.
Facebook shut the page down, without any explanation or forewarning, according to Ellis.
But by that point, he’d already established groups for each state and assigned leaders for protest movements in each state.
“The Facebook shutdown actually doubled or tripled our numbers across the board,” Ellis said. “It gave us extra time to grow.”
The Facebook content was not controversial, in Ellis’ mind.
“I was posting Constitutional information, encouraging peaceful protests with six foot distancing with the masks. They deleted the page without warning and no reason. It was just gone,” he said. “Facebook should be held responsible for this, because they’re censoring that we’re pushing to do this safely, and they’re stopping the safety message on this.”
Ellis created groups partially to encourage organization in states that are “smaller, less recognizable, and less likely to get reported by snowflakes and social justice warriors,” Ellis said.
He said that he encouraged people to wear masks to the protests so that the story wouldn’t focus on that issue. “I’m not a doctor, but I deal with mold on a regular basis. I don’t wear a mask to protect the mold from me, but to protect myself from it, if I wear it correctly,” he said.
To learn more about American Revolution 2.0, visit https://americanrevolution2.org/
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