Over the past four years many extremist and conspiracy theorist groups have been connecting and even forming alliances. The pandemic and the shelter in place orders have probably increased this trend, with anti-vaccine activists and other conspiracy groups joining with extremist groups in protests online and in person.
This isn’t entirely new. Recall a few years back when Andrew Wakefield’s faux-documentary (propaganda film, really) Vaxxed was touring the U.S.. One spokesperson they collected on the way was a holocaust denialist (Why are Robert Kennedy Jr. and Wakefield’s Vaxxed team allying with someone who spreads holocaust denialism?).
With that in mind, one shouldn’t be surprised to see that a prominent anti-vaccine activist has come forward to defend the Proud Boys. In case you haven’t heard of the Proud Boys, they made big news (always a win for extremists/fringe groups) when they were mentioned during the Presidential Debate recently. Donald Trump, stalling on calling out white supremacists, asked for a specific group to be named. Joe Biden obliged and named the Proud Boys (read about the Proud Boys on the Southern Poverty Law Center website here ).
Here is a post from the Facebook feed of Joshua Coleman (click to enlarge). He states:
–Joshua Coleman
They [the Proud Boys] seemed like really good guys. Over the last few years I’ve met many more and seen them at events they either organized or attended.
It’s unclear why he was at the events the Proud Boys organized or attended. But a key word there is “organized”. It’s not just “hey, look who showed up? Those really good guys the Proud Boys are here!”. No, it’s “I’m going to this event the Proud Boys have organized.
Ok, but who is this Joshua Coleman guy anyway? There are many anti-vaccine activists out there, who is he? He was part of the Vaxxed tour, driving around with Polly Tommey touting Andrew Wakefield’s monstrosity of a film. Since then he’s been a very active part of the anti-vaccine movement, arranging events and protests. I won’t link to them as I’ve given him enough attention, and, as I noted above, extremists love attention. A quick online search will get you a lot of information.
So, we have part of Wakefield’s team, a leader in the anti-vaccine movement attending “events” organized by the “really good guys” the Proud Boys.
I keep thinking I’m done losing respect for these people and this movement. And they keep going lower and proving me wrong.
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By Matt Carey
