Reprinted with permission from DailyKos
Across the country there has been a Koch-funded Republican caravan of anti-mask and anti-vaccine protests. The levels of disruption and threats to school boards and students getting back to school has varied. Republican operatives have used this as an issue with which they can promote what is left of their long-abandoned platforms of "small government" and "family values." Grabbing onto what was once a fringe movement, the GOP has now added more money and resources into the existing anti-vaxxer movement infrastructure and tied it to the general amorphous conspiracy theories the Tea Party and Trump have run on for the last decade. Think Affordable Care Act "death panels." It's the same dangerously asinine logic that the conservative movement has used forever to make Americans vote against their best interests.
For as depressing as this battle has been, for how retrograde and counterintuitive its intentions are, there have been some great moments of levity and defiance. On Monday, one teen stepped forward to give us all a moment of righteous exhilaration and cement their place in the pantheon of social heroes fighting to make our world a better place. In a video posted on Twitter, a group of adult protesters on a corner yelled at children as those children walked to school. The group was holding their anti-vaxxer signs, telling the kids to "find out how dangerous these vaccines are." The young man in question was walking past and piped up to say, "Fuck off!", stunning the anti-vaxxer parrot, who likely thought someone else's children were as easy a mark for manipulation as her own.
Enjoy.
One note to make here is that one of the signs prominently displayed includes the "My child my choice" rallying cry of anti-vaxxers everywhere. None of these children are any of these protesters' "child." Just one of those things that makes you wonder.
Kid tells an anti-vaxxer to f*ck off and he’s now my hero https://t.co/O794M4OFXE— Wu-Tang Is For The Children (@Wu-Tang Is For The Children) 1633800718.0
The responses to this heroic feat of F-bombadiering are glorious.
@WUTangKids Never harangue a snarky teenager - they WILL disrespect you, and all their friends will laugh at you.— Eve Fisher (@Eve Fisher) 1633802830.0
@WUTangKids “My child, my choice!” he said as he shoved a poster stating his beliefs in random children’s faces.— DC2NY (@DC2NY) 1633803572.0
A reminder: Not all heroes wear capes.
@WUTangKids Love the kid in the window. https://t.co/Gs1TsVusqH— Terrie in Peoria💙Arizona (@Terrie in Peoria💙Arizona) 1633861173.0
@WUTangKids Are they "experimental" masks also?— Anne McCarthy (@Anne McCarthy) 1633805890.0
@WUTangKids her face after the legend has spoken https://t.co/KvXekzzliw— theAce (@theAce) 1633967711.0
And finally my favorite response.
@WUTangKids “I see dead people.” https://t.co/ZofR0e2Hrr— Sanho Tree (@Sanho Tree) 1633803736.0