One of the interesting things about wingnuts is that they can mention something crazy in passing, but normal people will either miss it entirely because of the fleeting mention, or simply shrug because it blends in with even crazier, more obvious stuff.
Thus it was with State Representative Savannah Maddox of Dry Ridge at the Tea Party-esque rally held on May 2 in Frankfort. Like its predecessors during the Obamacare frenzy, these “liberate rallies” are encouraged by libertarian-minded billionaires who see profits as outweighing people; as with the 2010 Tea Party rallies, you’ll find folks traveling from hundreds of miles away, rather than an extemporaneous uprising of local folks; and like the Tea Party rallies, there are some wingnut ideas that get very short shrift because of being drowned out by the shocking display of racist and anti-Semitic signs and statements that invariably appear.
Now, it’s up to Representative Maddox to explain why — as with President Trump — her message resonates so deeply with white supremacists. What I’m addressing in this piece is something else: Maddox’s odd statement that “Nobody’s ever going to force me to get a vaccine.”
Wait a minute? Don’t we all want a COVID-19 vaccine? For most of us, we get vaccines against measles, mumps, hepatitis, diphtheria, tetanus — really, I forget them all. But, if you believe a lot of wingnut conspiracy theories, you DON’T want that COVID-19 vaccine.
The conspiracies about the virus, and the vaccine
You see, wingnuts believe that the COVID-19 virus is the 19th iteration of the coronavirus and that it was created in Wuhan in labs under the guidance of George Soros. (Ever wonder why so many right-wing conspiracies center on blacks and rich Jews?)
Or, perhaps it was Bill Gates. Or Dr. Anthony Fauci. Or maybe Jimmy Carter. Or Pope Francis. Or the guy who draws the cartoons for Steven Universe. (OK, I made up the last three, but they make as much sense.) Yes friends, believe it or not, 23 percent of your fellow Americans believe that the coronavirus was deliberately created as a bioweapon.
Somehow this completely man-made virus intended for biological warfare escaped the lab at Wuhan, and that’s how the worldwide pandemic began. No one explains why you’d create a virus without developing the vaccine to inoculate your own population or the soldiers who would be spreading this bioweapon. Or how this virus was able to escape from a biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) lab, the type of labs with the most stringent security in the world. Or how this virus decided to head to an open-air market instead of to an apartment building, say, or amongst the scientists at the lab. Or why the health services of every single nation have said definitely that the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19’s official name) is not derived from any other virus. When you’re a wingnut, nothing has to make sense.
The Bill Gates connection is even sillier than the George Soros one. Bill Gates, worth more than $100 billion, spends most of his time trying to give his money away, not make more. And, even if he had funded the development of the virus, wouldn’t a multinational pharmaceutical giant have gotten the jump on him with a vaccine? After all, they’re the experts.
Now, you’d think that this conspiracy story would end with some greedy billionaire creating a virus so as to then cash in on providing the vaccine. And some of the more sane conspiracy theorists — is that even a thing? Now they’re making me crazy — subscribe to the vaccine exploitation. But the real wingnuts, of course, have to go one step farther.
A favorite amongst anti-vaxxers and libertarian extremists is the ridiculous conspiracy theory that the entire point of the coronavirus is to create a scary enough disease that people will willingly accept being vaccinated. Maybe even implanted with a microchip-embedded vaccine. Why? Who knows? For some reason or other. And, like so much of the 2016 election misinformation, these nonsensical conspiracy theories are spread by Russia.
But the crème de la crème of conspiracy theories is the one in which this new COVID-19 vaccine is going to kill you! And, as usual, wingnuts are vague as to who would develop such a vaccine (isn’t their hero, Donald Trump, in charge?) or what the point would be. But that doesn’t slow down their feverish delusion:
- “Mass vaccination for COVID-19 in Senegal was started yesterday (4/8) and the first 7 CHILDREN who received it DIED on the spot,” a Facebook post reads.
- An Instagram post from an account called “bye_bye_big_pharma” says that “CV vaccine tested in patients in Africa started yesterday. (4/8/2020) It was passed without any animal safety studies. 7 children died on the spot after injection.” Oh, no!
- Already, the vaccine HAS KILLED ALL KINDS OF KIDS IN AFRICA!
All over Facebook, wingnuts are taking a firm stand against submitting to this killer vaccine. No surprise there, even though the killer COVID-19 vaccine theory has been debunked by both Agence France Presse Senegal and FactCheck.org. But all you need to know to debunk this theory is to use your coconut: How did Senegal come up with a vaccine in February? And what would be the point of using a vaccine to kill Americans? That would neither enrich you nor help you get elected. So you wouldn’t create a killer vaccine.
Does Rep. Maddox really think that the coronavirus vaccine is going to kill her? Or that she’s been tagged for microchipping? Or, does she know that she is spouting nonsense, but is using the fabrication to appeal to the most deranged elements of Trump’s base? Or does she think that it makes her look like a libertarian badass, saying No to Big Gubmint even when it’s out to save her life?
We can’t know why she said what she said. We can’t know what she was thinking. But we can definitely know what much of her audience wanted to hear. And she delivered it to them, anti-vaxx and all.
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