Forward Kentucky: A guide to vaccine wing-nuttery
By IVONNE ROVIRA
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.”