“Gaslighting” is a term that refers to the manipulation of someone in order to lead them to question their own reality and even sanity. Last month, a COVID-19 minimizer and antivaxxer declared 2022 the “year of the gaslighter,” revealing yet again that it’s always projection with science-denying propagandists. Unfortunately, 2023 looks to hold a lot more of the same in store.
Great Barrington Declaration author Dr. Jay Bhattacharya claimed that the pandemic was over and “regular people” will hold “them” accountable, while coauthor Martin Kulldorff Tweeted an article with an image of a guillotine. Do they know that calls for “justice” like this echo an old and very dark antivax fantasy?
On Monday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis convened a roundtable including “Urgency of Normal,” Great Barrington Declaration authors, and antivaxxers. This was no coincidence, given the common talking points and causes between the groups.
If one wants to see how much alike antimaskers and antivaxxers are, just look at their rhetoric about vaccines and masks as religion, slavery, and magic.
The Brownstone Institute, a spinoff of AIER and the “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration,” is now embracing its inner antivaxxer by likening vaccine mandates to “othering,” including slavery and Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.
