Burlington, Vermont; holds rallies for Canadian Truckers.
Remember what the Japanese Admiral Yamamoto said after he bombed Pearl Harbor, "I fear all we have done is to awaken the sleeping giant."
OUTH BURLINGTON — It was the first protest Catherine Connolly had been to in a long time.
The 65-year-old had joined counterprotests decades ago, she said, when antiwar activists in Burlington demonstrated outside the former General Electric Co. plant on Pine Street. As the antiwar crowd handed ice cream to the workers who manufactured weapons at the site, Connolly recalled, she and her group gave out American flags.
On Saturday afternoon, Connolly once again found herself in the middle of a protest, holding an American flag. But as the wind whipped across the Williston Road bridge over Interstate 89, she talked about the conversion — getting “red-pilled,” as she jokingly called it — that has led her to distrust government health advisories, mainstream media and even the Republican Party.
While Connolly believed these things, the group she joined on Saturday was by no means a monolith. Protesters who spoke to VTDigger confessed differing opinions on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the legality of abortion.
What united them, however, was the aim of their protest: To speak out against government-enforced restrictions on people who are not vaccinated against Covid-19, and to extol what they called “medical freedom.”
“People are frustrated. They’re tired,” Swanton resident Gary Pouliot said between puffs on a tobacco pipe.
The protest — which has been going on with at least one attendee every day this week — attracted roughly 50 people to one of the busiest intersections in Vermont. Holding signs that derided the efficacy and safety of vaccines, the demonstrators garnered plenty of honks (and not a few middle fingers) from passing cars.
Protesters said they heard about the event through social media groups created to criticize vaccine mandates. In the groups, they said, participants share content that casts doubt on the safety of the vaccines. During the protest, Connolly and another attendee, Grand Isle resident Lou Klein, bonded over their appreciation for the anti-vaccine podcast The X22 Report.
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