Last Sunday afternoon, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, former TV producer and anti-vaccination activist Del Bigtree bellowed a warning: When the comeuppance arrives for what he described as authorities' mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, "Unlike the Nuremberg trials that only tried those doctors that destroyed the lives of human beings, we're going to come after the press," too.
He wasn't alone. Although the chief villain of Sunday's anti-vaccination Defeat the Mandates rally was probably Dr. Anthony Fauci — depicted in a jail cell on multiple rally-goers' signs — the media wasn't far behind. Texas ophthalmologist Dr. Richard Urso led the crowd in a call-and-response that began with, "Does anyone trust the news media?" An Idaho pathologist who came under professional investigation for allegedly claiming that COVID vaccines actually cause COVID disease goaded the crowd into chanting "Do your job!" at the press platform behind them. And virologist Dr. Richard Malone concluded his warning that vaccines might leave children with brain damage or fertility problems with a rare note of promise, saying, "I sincerely believe we can break through the effects of the madness of crowds, the mass formation," because the "dark winter … pushed by fear-mongers in the press is failing to materialize."
