Opinion: Rioters and anti-vaxxers are cut from the same cloth - Kathleen Parker
As I listened to the testimony Tuesday of Capitol and D.C. police officers who were attacked by the violent mob in Washington on Jan. 6, I wondered how many of the terrorists bothered to get their coronavirus vaccines. Guessing wildly, I’m going to say: Not many. I couldn’t help thinking it because there’s an overlap between anti-vaxxers and the rioters. Both were and are guided by disinformation intentionally distributed to pit Americans against one another — by forces internal or external, or both. We used to call that propaganda. Now, too often, we call it politics.
Both the rioters and the anti-vaxxers believe what is demonstrably wrong to the detriment of others. The rioters believed that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump. The anti-vaccine crowd embraced Trump’s initially blasé attitude toward the virus, despite his having been vaccinated since, and despite massive evidence supporting the efficacy of the vaccines, which, until recently, were close to putting the virus to bed.
You recognize the common denominator.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that anti-vaccine people are prone to riot or that they’d even condone what happened on Jan. 6. I know a few such people, and they flatly would not. Anecdotally, however, I can say that everyone I know who refuses to get a coronavirus vaccine also voted for Trump, even if most people I know who voted for Trump raced to get their vaccines. And, though my unvaccinated acquaintances would never raise their voices much less a fist, they might not mind too much that others took to the barricades and took back the election.
This is because they really do believe that someone (the deep state, Anthony S. Fauci, Nancy Pelosi, Charles E. Schumer, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, take your pick) is trying to pull the wool over their eyes. First it was the masks, then the vaccines, — two innovations which they believe were conceived to test the willingness of the populace to form a line and board the train. Of course, they stole the election! They had to, right?
More..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/27/rioters-anti-vaxxers-are-cut-same-cloth
= new reply since forum marked as read
