Recently at an anti-vaccination rally, Republican Rep. Heidi Sampson referred to Janet Mills, Maine’s governor, and her sister, Dr. Dora Anne Mills, MaineHealth executive and former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director, as the reincarnations of Joseph Goebbels and Josef Mengele.

So far, we’ve seen many right-wing protests of vaccine mandates for health care workers and school mask mandates for children. If these people like the history of fascism so much then I have a slogan they will surely love: “¡Muera la inteligencia! ¡Viva la Muerte!” (“Death to intelligence! Long live death!”). This was the declaration of Francisco Franco’s fascist general, José Millán Astray.

As we continue to see the vaccination critics’ and Republican Party response to the pandemic, masks and vaccines, it cannot be clearer that this is their motto, too, their one true guiding principle.

Anthony Fiori
Portland