Washington DC hosts huge anti-vaccine mandate protest with thousands of demonstrators

3.7k

View
comments

Thousands gathered in Washington D.C. – a city that mandates vaccines – for a ‘Defeat the Mandates’ protest, with protesters blaring ballads by Meat Loaf, a musician who is feared to have succumbed to COVID-19 complications at 74 after vocal hesitation about the jab. 

Robert F. Kennedy and Informed Consent Action Network founder Del Bigtree were among big names who addressed the rally Sunday morning. Around 20,000 people were expected to attend the demonstration.

‘Americans want democracy back, and this rally is a demand by Americans to get their democracy back,’ Kennedy said of the rally, according to WUSA9.    

Kennedy compared the plight of the vaccine-adverse to that of Anne Frank on Sunday, saying that ‘even in Hitler’s Germany, you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank did.’

Scroll down for video

Many of those who did so were not masked, despite DC Mayor Muriel Bowser mandating masks outdoors for people who have not had their COVID shot when gathered in large groups outside. 

Meat Loaf – who died of suspected COVID side effects last week aged 74 – could be heard blaring out over the demonstration.

The much loved star was vocally anti-vaccine mandate and mask, and has since become a folk hero for those at the demonstration. Rumors that he was killed by the virus itself would also make him one of its highest-profile victims. It is unknown if he’d had a vaccine prior to his death. 

In videos posted to social media, the singer’s hit I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) could be heard blaring as protesters gathered around the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool. 

After the artist’s death on Thursday, some mocked his stances on vaccine and mask mandates on social media. 

‘In the end, he finally let us know what that one thing was that he wouldn’t do for love: Get vaccinated,’ tweeted Gene Wu, a Democrat in the Texas state House of Representatives, referring to the lyrics to his song that protesters played on Sunday.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a member of the ‘Disinformation Dozen’ – 12 individuals who disseminate about two thirds of the anti-vaccine content on social media, according to a study conducted by The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and Anti-Vax Watch alliance. 

The son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy Sr. was banned from Instagram in February of 2021 ‘for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,’ a spokesperson for parent company Facebook explained at the time.   

‘While coerced submission with experimental medical products is clearly government-sponsored violence, the anti-mandates movement is committed to nonviolent resistance,’ Kennedy said this week in a statement.

In his speech on Sunday, Kennedy referred to the modern climate as ‘turnkey totalitarianism,’ saying that the government has managed to ‘put in place all of these totalitarian measures for control,’ making COVID-era policies inescapable, and comparing those holding out on taking the vaccine to Anne Frank in Nazi Germany. 

Unlike Anne Frank, who hid in a cramped Amsterdam attic with seven other persecuted Jews for 761 days during the Nazi regime before she and her family were rooted out and sent to die in concentration camps, ‘none of us can run and none of us can hide’ from COVID-era policies in the wake of modern technology. 

‘It’s been the ambition of every totalitarian state from the beginning of mankind to control every aspect of behavior, of conduct, of thought, and to obliterate dissent. None them have been able to do it. They didn’t have the technological capacity.’  

‘Today, the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide.’ 

‘Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,’ Kennedy continued. ‘I visited in 1962 East Germany with my father, and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible — many died doing it, but it was possible.’   

Kennedy also likened Fauci to Mussolini, with the audience erupting into a chant of ‘lock him up!’ 

The Auschwitz Memorial Museum responded to Kennedy’s comments, saying that he was ‘exploiting the tragedy of people who suffered, were humiliated, and murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany – including children like Anne Frank – in a debate about vaccines and limitations during [a] global pandemic is a sad symptom of moral and intellectual decay.’ 

He espoused theories about 5G, too, saying that ‘within five years, we’re going to see 415,000 low-orbit satellites — Bill Gates and his 65,000 satellites alone will be able to look at every square inch of the planet 24 hours a day.’  

Robert Malone, a physician and prominent coronavirus mRNA vaccine critic who told protesters they were ‘standing on the shoulders of giants.’

‘Regarding the vaccines, the science is settled – they’re not working,’ Malone said on Sunday. 

‘They are not completely safe. Now they have omicron. These vaccines were designed for the wuhan strain, the original virus. Whether they made sense to protect the elderly is irrelevant, so let’s stop arguing about that.’

 Prominent anti-vaccine comedian JP Sears told protesters that you ‘cannot comply your way out of tyranny,’ and that ‘we’re the land of the free because of the brave – not because of the compliant.’   

Former CBS correspondent Lara Logan, who compared White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci to infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele on a November Fox News appearance, also spoke to protesters.

A spirited chant of ‘Do your job!’ followed Ryan Cole’s assertion that CNN employees ‘wake up in the morning [they] I’m going to cancel and censor doctors today so people can die. 

‘You are responsible, too… it’s up to you to say “I’ve been wrong, I’ll be humble, I’ll do my job as a journalist and tell the truth – that people have immune systems,’ he said.

Groups formed by public employees, including Feds for Medical Freedom and 200 representing the D.C. Firefighters Bodily Autonomy Affirmation Group, were also in attendance. 

The event’s organizer, Matt Tune of Chicago, 48, said that he ‘wanted to change the current narrative’ surrounding those against vaccines and vaccine mandates. 

‘The goal is to show a unified front of bringing people together — vaccinated, unvaccinated, Democrats, Republicans, all together in solidarity,’ he said. 

‘The current narrative … which is basically saying that we’re a bunch of weirdos and freaks who don’t care about humanity… [is] not true at all.’

Sunday’s protest drew a wide range of protesters, many elderly, with others babies in strollers. According to the Washington Post, many held up signs backing former President Donald Trump, himself an outspoken supporter of the vaccines his administration developed.

Others toted signs with slogans like ‘Let’s go Brandon,’ ‘F**k Joe Biden’and ‘Trump Won.’ Those who were wearing masks were seen being taunted, with one man heckling people wearing face-coverings by saying ‘Take those masks off…it’s all a lie!’ 

About 10 men wearing the insignia for the Proud Boys, an extremist group involved in the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6,lingered on the Lincoln side of the Reflecting Pool according to the Post. 

The protest appeared to include both demonstrators who are pro-vaccine but anti-mandate, and others who are both anti-vaccine and anti-mandate.

One person with the latter belief was seen holding a sign saying ‘Vaccines are mass kill bio weapons.’ Kelly Clarkson’s song Stronger – with the lyrics  ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ could also be heard blaring out, according to the Post. The song was blaring from a bus parked beside the Washington Monument, covered in signs reading ‘ARREST OR EXILE’ along with photos of Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates and Jacob Rothschild.

Body therapist Justin Perrault, from Fairhaven in Massachusetts, said he’d been moved to attend after clients had stopped coming to his clinic because he’d refused to have a vaccine.  

He said he’d recently started using food stamps, and was worried about what his four and eight year-old children would make of him.

Perrault, who traveled with his wife and her friend, said he also wanted to take a stand against scientists’ claims that COVID vaccines are safe.

Suzanna Robertson of New Jersey, 52, carried a sign explaining that she was a lifelong registered Democrat until recently, before she decided this year that she didn’t identify with either political party. Robertson campaigned for Bernie Sanders and even voted for current President Joe Biden in 2020. She had COVID-19 in March of 2020, she said, but only exhibited mild symptoms. 

She said she had never voted for a Republican candidate until recently, after she was ‘disappointed’ by Biden’s rhetoric against those who chose not to get the jab.  

‘This is not a political thing,’ she said. ‘If you want to get the vaccine, get it.’

Robertson told the Post she would ‘die first’ before she got vaccinated. 

Also present was Jaedyn Wetzel, 12, who toted a sign saying ‘I have natural immunity.’ Wetzel, from Warfordsburg in Pennsylvania, caught COVID over Thanksgiving, and has since recovered. 

Wetzel’s mother, who did not wish to be named in fear of retribution, learned of the protest on Telegram channels, including one for auditing the 2020 presidential election results. She told the Post that she doesn’t use Facebook or Twitter because those companies ‘promote censorship.’ 

Police had small but visible presence on the Mall during the protest, with about 10 mounted officers lining the group’s march route. Fences had been erected around the Lincoln Memorial to prevent protesters from climbing the steps.

It is unclear whether they attempted to enforce the city’s mask mandate, although the Post described one officer pacing the area around the Smithsonian subway stop exit as bare-face protesters walked by. 

Thus far, there are 25 states that have vaccine mandates for employees of various categories, with 21 requiring vaccines or continuous testing for healthcare workers and six taking a ‘vaccinate or terminate’ approach and putting healthcare workers who are unvaccinated on leave. 

Conversely, 13 states have passed laws barring employers from mandating vaccines.

On Wednesday, NYPD officers were heckled for arresting five organized anti-vax mandate protesters and detaining a nine year-old girl Wednesday after they barged into the Natural History Museum without showing proof of COVID vaccination.  

Trouble began when a half-dozen purported members of the New York Freedom Rally – a group that has been staging anti-vax protests throughout the city – attempted to enter the Manhattan museum without showing their vaccine passports in violation of rules. Those require every visitor five years and older to show proof of vaccination.

The nine year-old, named Jayla, was filmed sobbing as she was marched down the steps by two cops, with onlookers filmed heckling and abusing the NYPD officers over her apprehension. She and her unnamed mom were taken to a nearby precinct, and released two hours later. It is unclear if the youngster’s mom will be charged.

The six anti-mandate activists affiliated with the New York Freedom Rally had made reservations to visit the museum on Wednesday, but were denied entry after failing to produce their COVID vaccine passports.