Anti-vaxers are anti-government

Compromise doesn’t work when a movement is willing to use force to destroy its opposition

Members of the Freedom Angels in Battle Mountain, NV. June 2021. Photo by author.

As the Delta variant runs rampant across the United States and new vaccine and mask mandates pop up in local governments, school districts, and businesses, we are once again seeing armed military-style protests, similar to those that began last summer and exploded on January 6.

Over the summer, President Joe Biden acted as though the country had won the coronavirus war and people began to go out again. We were unmasked and eating and drinking, beginning to feel like life could be normal. My kid went to camp. I went to a winery with friends, where we sat outside and felt, for the first time in a while, like things could be okay.

Yet, I knew better because over the summer, I have been following, tracking, and reporting on the “constitutional sheriff” movement’s new revival. The first thing I noticed was significantly more women involved in anti-government movements. Then I realized why – they were pulled in by anti-vax groups, which range from the “questioners” (celebrities, alternative lifestyle people, etc) and groups like Freedom Angels (who were, from what I could see, immensely popular), more militant groups that are staging protests and mobilizing a lot of people.

The anti-vax movement -- newly strengthened over the last year by joining with other anti-government extremists in the image of Posse Comitatus like Constitutional Sheriffs, militia groups (including Three Percenters, Proud Boys, etc), and Qanon adherents — continues to make its play for space. While the militia movement is more focused on 2nd Amendment rights, and the Constitutional Sheriffs are more focused on the sheriff’s political legitimacy, the anti-vaxers have brought many more women into the movement – women whose primary concern is their family, specifically children. The language being used by very anti-government groups like the Freedom Angels isn’t one of white supremacy or even anti-taxation; it’s a language about autonomy, choice, and the desire to live one’s life “freely,” which often translates into off-the-grid, which could be a yoga retreat or Little House on the Prairie depending on how you read it. Shifting further away from just being crunchy-granola, Freedom Angels hold seminars on how to form private membership associations, essentially private clubs that take on government functions, like health care, education, and food safety. (Not unlike the “clubs” used by racists to prevent school desegregation or by anti-tax farmers to justify going into business without following FDA regulations.)

While it might sound idyllic, commune-like even, to withdraw from society and associate with your own, these groups are, at their core, as anti-government as the Proud Boys (and just as supportive of gun ownership). Anti-vax leaders encourage women, specifically, to pull their children out of public school and homeschool them to avoid masking mandates – with the added benefit of pulling money out of public schools and increasing inequities as well as hobbling the labor movement. They are looking to become food-independent, essentially creating a shadow society that does not need the FDA or other food licensing regimes. The federal government is untrustworthy and is pulling women away from their common sense, their own heartfelt notions about what is best for their families.

And, really, who in their right mind can argue with that? The left gets fooled. Most of us, most progressives, also want choice and freedom to do what is best for our children. We want accommodations and IEPs. When the school over-punishes our children, we want to see them nurtured. Lots of people support a return to unstructured, screen-free time. And we probably buy organic food, or we think that organic food has some value, and, therefore worth more. Similarly, the government has made grave errors: over-policing, overuse of criminal laws, systemic racism causing children to eat less and go to underfunded schools, and a disregard for family integrity, where kids are ripped from their parents’ arms because they are poor or Black or otherwise nonconforming.

Yet, while there are good reasons to worry about the federal government, it is important that we recognize that righting past wrongs and creating more equity is not the aim of the anti-vax movement. For one thing, the current anti-vax movement is deeply rooted in Christian nationalism, a sense that people who live in the United States are somehow different and special because they have individual rights that were mandated by God (in lieu of, say, understanding the Bill of Rights as a list of the trending topics as written by a bunch of drunk men that year). Christian nationalism sees the federal government, the ideologically diverse Democrats in particular, as betrayers of this deep, important promise. And for another, the anti-vaxers have merged with existing anti-government movements – groups that have been around for decades and that led to the 1994 Oklahoma City bombing – in a mutually beneficial relationship. The anti-vaxers bring media clout to the otherwise stodgy militia movement – their female demographic view social media as an important part of their world, the gabbing around the kitchen sink of yore, which simultaneously gives women power even as it allowed them to stay in their domestic sphere. And the militia movement gives anti-vaxers tactical know-how, which they use to defend, Valkyrie-like, their homeland.

Finally, the sheriffs give both of them legitimacy within a form of politics that is acceptable to Christian nationalists. Gun ownership-supporting, distrustful of federal governments, and elected locally, sheriffs allow anti-government groups to argue that they are not a guerilla army, but rather the true, beating heart of the U.S.A. Other law enforcement is following suit. While ex-military members have always been a large segment of the militia movement, more cops are getting involved. Those same cops – mostly rank-and-file police officers and sheriffs’ offices – are opposing vaccine and mask mandates. They see in the anti-government movement a better place for them, one where their power can expand forever and be useful to all of the groups mentioned before by ensuring that “other people” – recent immigrants, Black Americans, Native Americans, LGBTQ communities – are excluded or extinguished through the criminal legal system.

Sheriffs and militia members mingle at a rally in Battle Mountain, NV. Both served as security for the event. June 2021. Photo by author.

This might sound sort of bleak. Many well-intentioned writers and thinkers argue that persuasion should take the place of mandates. I’m sure some people will be persuaded; I can’t speak to individual intentions. But the large-scale movement of anti-government extremists who are actively opposing vaccination and mask mandates have shown they are willing to use force and will align themselves with others who will use force. I am not sure they are persuadable because their very goal is to destroy any hope of a democratic society. It is not that they don’t understand the reasons to vaccinate; it’s that the war is more important than the battle. And they won’t stop there. With the support of an armed military and law enforcement, anti-vaxers can control social media to effectively broadcast their message (mainly by muddling hopes and fears) and can take, by force if necessary, the reins of government.

Addendum: Sheriff Mack issued a video saying that people should ask their sheriff about getting the COVID shot. Then, he explained that if the sheriff says you should get a vaccine, you should go back and explain that he needs to take more CSPOA classes.