Might the Anti-Vaxxers deal a mortal blow to the Trumpist GOP?
Look. I’m a pediatrician. I’ve been dealing with people who have questions about vaccines for a long, long time. The vast majority of these parents have legitimate questions about vaccines based on fears that have been stoked by misinformation. In this context, someone who is asking a question about a treatment for their kid is doing it out of fear and out of love. When I show them that I respect their concerns, we can have a rich conversation, and more often than not, they finally agree that vaccination is the best choice for their child.
However, there is that 2–3% of parents who fit into the extreme Anti-Vaxx demographic. They are anchored in their constricted worldview and will simply never protect their children with vaccination.
The Anti-Vaxxers have gained strength because of their fervent singlemindedness about this one issue and their willingness to advance their goals by any means necessary. We in the larger society, in turn, have had the luxury of being able to tolerate this because the diseases we vaccinate children against, while still present, are relatively uncommon — BECAUSE of vaccination. For the most part, then, the only harm that accrues from their refusal to vaccinate is to themselves and, sadly, to their children, and it has been rare that a parent not vaccinating their child would affect other children.
It makes sense, then, that the Anti-Vaxx movement and the Trumpist GOP would feel an affinity for one another. These two groups certainly seem to have a lot in common emotionally and intellectually: a belief in conspiracy theories, a belief in radical “freedom,” a belief in responsibility only to oneself and none to the larger society.
In the case of COVID vaccination, though, I do wonder if perhaps these groups have finally gone too far.
These radical factions are now increasingly perceived as a clear and present danger, not just to themselves, but to all of us. This has, in turn, radicalized a much larger percent of our population to reject their patently death-promoting philosophy. It becomes clearer by the day, by the hour, that people are dying who did not need to die. The fact that so many people in these groups have flagrantly, contemptuously rejected vaccination has allowed the COVID delta variant to evolve and become the predominant strain, even infecting those who have been vaccinated and has infuriated even the most temperate among us.
One of the realities of communication for doctors and scientists and progressives and Democrats is that, because we believe in powerful, reproducible evidence, we believe that facts alone are persuasive. This, of course, is has never been how human beings make decisions, at least initially. We lead with emotion, primarily fear and love, and those who know how to foment those emotions are often the most persuasive in the public sphere. Human beings are generally only able to move to reason as a basis for decision-making after their emotions have been affirmed and validated. (And emotions are ALWAYS valid even if the facts upon which these emotions are based are pure malarkey.) For those of us for whom reproducible evidence is a primary factor in decision-making (and I include myself in all of the categories mentioned above), this can be difficult to wrap our heads around.
Remarkably, though, I am seeing story after story in the news and post after post on social media of people like myself — doctors and scientists and progressives and Democrats — people who usually lead from intellect and logic expressing anger, frustration, even rage at the people — Anti-Vaxxers, Republicans, Trumpists — who are now seen as endangering all our lives.
As we see story after story of this rising anger among a very large segment of the population who have been vaccinated toward those who not refused it, and by extension toward the political party that is fomenting this disastrous position, I do wonder if this will be enough to motivate people people who have routinely said, “Well, I really don’t get involved in politics,” to take elective action against the party that is willfully endangering not only its own base, but all the rest of us.
It may be a pipe dream, and not necessarily a pleasant one, but I hope that there will be political consequences for that party that is threatening our life, our livelihoods, and the lives of our family and loved ones.
I am saying this primarily based on emotion without much data. but I am, first and foremost, a human being.
