Antivaxxers grow desperate as their world collapses in on them

Kamloops lawyer Jay Michi took his kids to Riverside Park Last Thursday for what he expected to be a Remembrance Day ceremony.

Riverside Park. Image: Jay Michi

What he didn’t know was that that it was about to be hijacked by antivaxxers and that the official ceremonies were being held at the Cenotaph for invited guests only.

Instead of tributes to Canada’s fallen war heroes, Michi and his kids were subjected to antivaxxer diatribe. Jay Michi (@jaymichi) tweeted:

“Took my kids to Rememberance Day ceremony in #Kamloops today. It turned into an Anti-Vaxx event. Never again.

It broke my heart. I will never subject them to that again. I will find a different way to teach them about the sacrifices of their great-grandfathers.

SHAME!”

In a poorly thought-out response to the antivaxxers, the shocked crowd was about to receive foul language when an angry veteran took over the microphone:

“The Veteran who took the mic from him then apologized,” tweeted Michi, “but proceeded to drop fuck bombs throughout his ill-thought speech.”

Jay Michi’s tweet obviously hit a nerve. It received 37 replies and over 100 retweets.

The attempt by antivaxxers to highjack a solemn occasion indicates just how desperate they have become. They lash out as their world shrinks under the weight of public opinion.

What’s next? Will antivaxxers start going from odor-to-door with their wild theories of chip-implantation by Bill Gates in his attempt at mind control?

TRU Professor Michael D. Mehta (@DrMichaelDMeht1) reflects on how zealous antivaxxers have become. He says in his reply to Jay Michi:

“Riverside Park is an issue. I spent several weekends down there playing ukulele on a bench and had to deal with dozens of zealots. One even prayed for my soul right there after I refused to discuss my religious beliefs. We need a no religion, no politics rule for public places.”

Antivaxxers respond with anger. A comment on a recent column of mine attempts to personalize the debate:

“Charbonneau is an immunity denier. He also fails to mention that many of us are simply opposed to forced medical treatment without informed consent. These vaccines do not prevent transmission or infection and it has now become clear their efficacy wanes over a short time. It’s all about political control and compliance and Charbonneau is about as compliant as you get.”

Will antivaxxers stand on street corners and preach the gospel of the Georgia Guidestones?

What? You haven’t heard of the Georgia Guidestones?

It’s a series of 20-foot high granite slabs with warnings for a future “Age of Reason.” Billed as “America’s Stonehenge,” it’s built to instruct survivors of an Armageddon.

Denise Powers tells me on Facebook:

“Check out the Georgia Guidestones…..  this edifice has been around for 40 years and is the Ten Commandments of the NWO [The New World Order, a secretly emerging totalitarian world government] and the elites. Read about it…it will chill you to the bone and you might see what I am talking about now with the depopulation program underway with the vaccination program being pushed so hard.”

Well, I do find it chilling –the degree to antivaxxers have fallen into a delusional dark spiral from which they lash out in desperation.

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Trump’s big-tent coalition of the deluded

President Trump has assembled a ragtag rabble of misfits into “Trump’s Army”.

Trump’s Army storms the U.S.Capital. Image: Los Angles Times

The disgraced president was able to unite marginalized groups in a way no other president has done. Believers in alien abductions, the Deep State, QAnon, the Proud Boys and the Illuminati all found a home in the White House.

Trump brought those on the fringes of society to prominence. Not only did he elevate these groups, he embodied their alternate reality. He epitomized a deranged mentality.

Political commentators struggled with Trump’s brand of leadership at first, calling it populism –an appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. It’s now clear that Trump’s leadership defies historical labels.

I could never figure out whether President Trump was delusional or a liar. Did he really believe the untruths he was telling or was he purposely telling untruths? Now I realize that the truth doesn’t matter. What seems important to me –whether something is true or not- is inconsequential. For Trump’s Army, the truth is a trifling matter of little importance.

It’s a rare moment in American history when an alternate reality has gripped the nation in a big-tent coalition of the deluded.

Trump’s Army is nowhere on the political spectrum of left and right. Sure, Republicans were seduced by visions of power but right-wing issues such as abortion, small government, low taxes were not key to Trump’s win. Delusion was the key to his success.

The alternate reality of Trump’s Army is outside the material world. It consists of far-right conspiracies such as QAnon which alleges a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against President Donald Trump. It proposes that Wayfair Furniture (a real company) was involved in a sex-trafficking ring involving children.

Antifa is a convenient straw man. Trump set up Antifa as a dangerous organization with the intention of defeating it. He can revel in the glory of defeating something that never really existed.

Illusions will die hard in the Republican Party.

After Trump’s Army invaded the Washington Capital last Wednesday, some Republicans had trouble processing it. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin was convinced that Antifa infiltrated the march. She went on Fox News and said “A lot of it is the Antifa folks.” Palin said she had seen some “pictures” that convinced her.

The big tent of fringe groups is fundamentally unstable. Eventually, real events happen that can only be dealt with people with a grip on reality.

The only way Republicans can gain control of the White House is by returning to their appeal to the right end of the political spectrum. By appealing to Trumps’ Army, Republicans risk losing the White House again.

Trump’s Army still poses a real danger.

An internal FBI bulletin warned that more violence is being planned: “Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the U.S. Capitol from 17 January through 20 January,”

If Republicans condemn Trump’s Army, they risk losing the fringe element. Good riddance, I say. If they continue to feed the Army’s mania, they risk sending America into a civil war that pits the zombie-like Trump’s Army against rational citizens.