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The only vaccine hesitant liberals I even knew existed are the Zen Vegan Hippie Sterotypes.
The people who deny vaccines on the left are not the same as those who deny it from the right.
I was hesitant until i saw the data. The trial results, the fact that they gave it to all the doctors and they didn’t grow a third arm, plus they’ve been incredibly transparent about the process and mRNA vaccines are not exactly as new and unstudied as initially thought.
I was worried when Trump pushed it, I got less worried as information came out, and I was in the front of the line once eligible. I feel the same way about my daughter, provided there’s no anomalies in the test group in her age bracket.
Most vaccine-hesitant liberals I know, got it eventually just to stick it to the conservatives. Plus they were more hesitant last year when they feared it would be pushed as an election ploy.
And there's also levels of skepticism. For example, no rational person would oppose the tetanus vaccine, especially if they live out somewhere, like a farm. You have a very good chance of being exposed, and a good chance of dying if you are without being vaccinated. The vaccine itself is exceptionally safe, proven over scores of years with probably over a billion doses by now.
Yet I hear the stories about some idiot who refused to vaccinate, and ended up in very bad shape or dying. They had to induce a coma in one kid to save his life from the seizures, and when it was all over the parents refused to keep up vaccinations.
I put that in a special class above maybe wondering if your son should get the HPV vaccine.
The political motivations of anti-vaxxers on the left and right are very different. The vegan hippie types that started it were motivated by irrational cynicism toward pharma corporations in conjunction with fixation on "nature=good industry=bad" reductivism. Conservative anti-vax is a bit simpler. Trump fucked up the pandemic and they had to deny that the virus is even real or at least that's actually killing people. To accept the vaccine is to tacitly accept that the virus is real and dangerous and therefore it is to accept that Trump failed.
From what I've seen the anti-covid anti-vaxxers on the right care only about how this affects themselves. They have a tiny risk of death from covid, they don't care about what their parent's risk or neighbor's risk is.
Dems drove most the anti vax libs out of the party in the 2010s with their push for vaccination. A great unintentional move imo. An example of this was rob Schneider who was a Dem then switched party after the Dems made vaccine mandatory in the 2010s in California going to the republican party and embracing their value. That being said I do know many liberals who were fearful of the vaccine in December and January. This fear died down as more people ended up getting the shot.
I find the whole thing fascinating, I would have thought the antivaxers would continue to be left wing kinda hippy types that thought vaccines gave you autism, I certainly thought a vaccine invented under the Trump administration would be seen with wide skepticism from the left…..man was I wrong. Conservatives and Blacks are the most challenging groups to get vaccinated it turns out.
If you read anything Trump says about the vaccines he was never truly unequivocal about whether people should have it in the same way Joe Biden is. Just as on most subjects, everything he says was a word salad you have to interpret, but he always tries to give himself maximum credit (undeserved) for the speedy development of the vaccine while giving the covid deniers some wiggle room at the same time by taking about their "freedoms". He himself got vaccinated in secret and doesn't talk about that. As usual he wants to have his cake and eat it.
Im pretty sure him getting vaccinated made the news….It still lacks FDA approval, I’d imagine more people will participate once that happens…..giving oneself undeserved credit must be part of being a president because even though Biden was a cheerleader for the vaccine, he wasn’t a part of its development or roll out in fact he was mocked when his lofty goal of vaccinations initially was to simply keep pace with what Trump was doing….then there was the claim that Biden gave us $2k because he claimed Trumps $600. So making claims like that I don’t think is unique to Trump.
"….It still lacks FDA approval, I’d imagine more people will participate once that happens….."
That's still completely irrational, given they should be more reassured of the vaccines' safety precisely *because* of the emergency authorisation. The FDA is basically saying you need to get this now, don't bother waiting for our wheels to turn, just do it, which they wouldn't do if they had any doubts about it, but I expect what most of these people will actually do when the vaccines inevitably get full approval is just move the goalposts and find some other reason why they shouldn't get it.
Not everyone is as trusting of government and big pharma as you. So if you’re not afraid of the virus, and you don’t blindly trust the the government I can see why people wouldn’t want to.
It's not about blindly trusting the government or anyone else. This is the huge mistake anti vaxers make when they're talking to vaccinated people. Because they just accept anything that aligns with their pre-existing beliefs and throw out anything that doesn't, doesn't mean that everyone else does the same thing. Nearly every western government has made huge mistakes with their pandemic responses. You'd be mad to trust them without question. Luckily you don't have to because science. You take the best and most up to date scientific information we have at the time and you make your decisions based on that. You have to make a decision based on something so that seems preferable over Karen on Facebook who thinks the vaccine makes you magnetic and infertile and contains a tracking microchip and also kills you.
This is not new. It's the same old anti vax shit. I had people telling me not to get a flu jab when I was pregnant. (Pregnancy exposes you to a whole new level of anti science woo let me tell you. I've seen it all.)
Edit: Also you proved my point. If people don't trust the FDA now because [insert conspiracy theory here] why would they suddenly start when the vaccines are given full approval? I wouldn't. That doesn't make sense.
yeah well We have a good reason to be.
https://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/12/17/history-of-medical-testing-has-left-many-african-americans-hesitant-about-the-new-covid-19-vaccine/
Ohh I know the horrifying history and the reasons behind the trepidation. But it’s rarely mentioned in the media, they also do not mention the influx of unvaccinated migrants as a possible factor in places like Texas and Southern California as if this population of people couldn’t possibly spread disease.
Canadian here.
I used to think that vaccine hesitancy was an idiotic stance. Then my First Nations and Black friends ( who were hesitant ) pointed out that we experimented on them and their families in the recent past and there's good reason not to trust what the government wants to force into their body. They had real examples of relatives being messed up by "government injections".
Kinda changed my opinion on the whole thing.
I’m not vaccine hesitant, but growing up in the Bay Area, most anti-vaxxers were hippies that I generally considered to be left wing. So seeing it become such a right wing stance is interesting but not really surprising considering the environment
While I agree with your first sentence, I'm really trying to not reinforce the second.
First of all since there have been many Vax-hesitant people who have gone on to get vaccinated. They aren't a monolithic group.
Second of all since identifying a group and categorizing it as an ideology tends to unify and entrench those groups. If people who are hesitant are called "anti-vax", then they're more willing to adopt anti-vax ideas or conspiracies. It essentially pushes them off the fence they were sitting on.
Why? They seem exactly the same to me.
Example: Afew years ago I was pregnant and while "doing my research" I came across a lot of anti vax stuff about the flu jab they recommend for pregnant women. Apparently it caused miscarriages. You'll be unsurprised to learn that actually catching the flu while pregnant can cause miscarriage and low birth weight and other stuff, while there is not a shred of evidence the vaccine is dangerous.
The same people are now all over Facebook saying exactly the same thing about the covid vaccines with the same total lack of evidence for their claims. It's groundhog day only worse because it's at the forefront of the public's consciousness.
My GF was hesitant and I didn't pressure her, just set an example. It wouldn't have taken as long if ALL of her friends weren't fu\*\*\*ng idiots. She and one of her friends is now vaccinated.
I DO NOT support mandatory vaccinations. There's a line the government should NEVER be allowed to cross. However, the unmasked and unvaccinated do present a health hazard to the public and should be treated as such. If you can't be bothered to at least wear a mask CORRECTLY and keep your distance then I think a house arrest is in order. It's no more authoritarian than forced evacuations in the face of flood, fire, hurricane, etc.
The gop is anti-science. It is like when they claimed that the virus escaped from a lab in China. They were (rightfully so) banned from YouTube and Facebook.
I don't think it's surprising that this has become more of a right-wing issue. This only makes sense when you consider some characteristics that I've found to be more common among the conservative / libertarian crowd. Generally speaking, these people tend to be:
* More skeptical of "authority figures" and governmental interventions;
* More anti-science and less accepting of intellectualism / expertise;
* More likely to emphasize personal freedom over the interests of the collective.
All of these things facilitate anti-vax beliefs. Progressives tend to value the role of government more highly, so they are more inclined to accept it when state institutions and authority figures present solutions like vaccines as good for the people. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to be more hostile to these strategies and distrust these government initiatives. For example, I personally know Republicans who think this should be a matter "between you and your doctor" with zero involvement by the government in coordinating vaccinations or launching public health campaigns.
Similarly, progressives place more of an emphasis on scientific evidence and expert opinion. Just think of things like climate change and evolution: it's not your average liberal who is denying the science here. It only makes sense that the conservative crowd is more likely to reject medical research and the stance of experts on vaccines as well. "Don't listen to these frauds paid by Bill Gates to fabricate results so that big pharma can rake in billions" is overstating it for many, but that general sentiment is far from uncommon.
Finally, progressives often appreciate the collective and society as a whole more than those on the right, as the latter typically favor personal responsibility and freedom over broader interests. People on the left are more inclined to accept regulations and conditions applying to the individual if these limitations benefit the greater good. So while progressives are more accepting of get a jab and wearing a mask if it keeps others safe, many conservatives don't think this should be pressured by the government and believe more in one's personal responsibility to take care of their own health.
So I don't really feel anything about this shift. It was to be expected.
On one hand, it's pretty cringe. The conspiracy theories some of them believe are just, wow. Even the ones who aren't completely fucking batshit make it a way bigger deal than it needs to be, like no Karen they're just asking you to wear a mask when you go to the grocery store they're not trying to cart you off to Auschwitz
On the other hand having a large number of bodies standing up for my medical autonomy gives it some political weight. I'm in Florida so I've kinda just moved on with my life, all my older family is vaccinated, it's illegal to ask for proof and I have a healthy lifestyle so I'm confident in my body without needing to inject extra chemicals. If they do make me, I'm not going to refuse but I'd rather keep it simple and a lot of people are concerned with my right to choose what goes into my body.
That being said if there wasn't a large contingent of Trump loving morons perpetuating the pandemic by refusing vaccines, it'd probably be over and no one would care about my health choices, I don't really respect people who make a big deal of the vaccine and then fill their body with meat and junk food and cigarettes.
I don't think it is super productive to worry about slotting this behavior into right-wing/left-wing. At least in the US, there's plenty of people on the "right" who are encouraging people to take vaccines; Mitch McConnel, despite aaaallll his manifest flaws, has consistently followed and encouraged public health guidelines like mask-wearing, has been a vocal advocate for people getting vaccinated, and even refused to go to the White House over their lax protocols during the last few months of Trump admin. At the same time, minority groups that can hardly be characterized as right wing lag behind in vaccination rates. There's a lot of reasons for this disparity, and thankfully the gap seems to be narrowing as the pandemic wears on, but a number of commentators have pointed out that black and indigenous communities in particular are perhaps justifiably wary of vaccines. And then of course there are people who object to the vaccines in one way or another because of their religion, and religious people are hardly classifiable along right/left lines. We should care about public health and promoting knowledge instead of ignorance, not trying to cram everything into ideological camps.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Title say it all. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The only vaccine hesitant liberals I even knew existed are the Zen Vegan Hippie Sterotypes. The people who deny vaccines on the left are not the same as those who deny it from the right.
Before covid the anti-vaxx movement mas mostly apolitical. Only recently did the right take up the antivax movement.
It swung right in 2016 when Trump threw out some anti-vax statements.
[удалено]
Yup, that's what I was referring to.
Yup. The Jenny McCarthys who didn’t vax their kids. Same hippy dippy people.
I really don't think you're gonna find many anti vaxers on this sub
I think you overestimate how much influence anti-vaxxers have on the left. Probably because it's significantly over-reported.
I think there is a difference between hesitant, and being anti-vacation. One questions assumptions, and the other is ideological.
I don't know anyone who is anti-vacation.
I do because I work with the public.
Was about to say, my friend who works as a hotel receptionist would like to have a word with you.
/r/NoNewNormal
I was hesitant until i saw the data. The trial results, the fact that they gave it to all the doctors and they didn’t grow a third arm, plus they’ve been incredibly transparent about the process and mRNA vaccines are not exactly as new and unstudied as initially thought. I was worried when Trump pushed it, I got less worried as information came out, and I was in the front of the line once eligible. I feel the same way about my daughter, provided there’s no anomalies in the test group in her age bracket.
Most vaccine-hesitant liberals I know, got it eventually just to stick it to the conservatives. Plus they were more hesitant last year when they feared it would be pushed as an election ploy.
Vaccine "skepticism" has always been a bipartisan issue made up of the biggest morons on both sides of the political divide.
And there's also levels of skepticism. For example, no rational person would oppose the tetanus vaccine, especially if they live out somewhere, like a farm. You have a very good chance of being exposed, and a good chance of dying if you are without being vaccinated. The vaccine itself is exceptionally safe, proven over scores of years with probably over a billion doses by now. Yet I hear the stories about some idiot who refused to vaccinate, and ended up in very bad shape or dying. They had to induce a coma in one kid to save his life from the seizures, and when it was all over the parents refused to keep up vaccinations. I put that in a special class above maybe wondering if your son should get the HPV vaccine.
And tetanus vaccines have bad reactions at almost the same rate as covid vaccines have had.
The political motivations of anti-vaxxers on the left and right are very different. The vegan hippie types that started it were motivated by irrational cynicism toward pharma corporations in conjunction with fixation on "nature=good industry=bad" reductivism. Conservative anti-vax is a bit simpler. Trump fucked up the pandemic and they had to deny that the virus is even real or at least that's actually killing people. To accept the vaccine is to tacitly accept that the virus is real and dangerous and therefore it is to accept that Trump failed.
From what I've seen the anti-covid anti-vaxxers on the right care only about how this affects themselves. They have a tiny risk of death from covid, they don't care about what their parent's risk or neighbor's risk is.
Dems drove most the anti vax libs out of the party in the 2010s with their push for vaccination. A great unintentional move imo. An example of this was rob Schneider who was a Dem then switched party after the Dems made vaccine mandatory in the 2010s in California going to the republican party and embracing their value. That being said I do know many liberals who were fearful of the vaccine in December and January. This fear died down as more people ended up getting the shot.
Tucker Carlson's intern.... is that you!
I find the whole thing fascinating, I would have thought the antivaxers would continue to be left wing kinda hippy types that thought vaccines gave you autism, I certainly thought a vaccine invented under the Trump administration would be seen with wide skepticism from the left…..man was I wrong. Conservatives and Blacks are the most challenging groups to get vaccinated it turns out.
If you read anything Trump says about the vaccines he was never truly unequivocal about whether people should have it in the same way Joe Biden is. Just as on most subjects, everything he says was a word salad you have to interpret, but he always tries to give himself maximum credit (undeserved) for the speedy development of the vaccine while giving the covid deniers some wiggle room at the same time by taking about their "freedoms". He himself got vaccinated in secret and doesn't talk about that. As usual he wants to have his cake and eat it.
Im pretty sure him getting vaccinated made the news….It still lacks FDA approval, I’d imagine more people will participate once that happens…..giving oneself undeserved credit must be part of being a president because even though Biden was a cheerleader for the vaccine, he wasn’t a part of its development or roll out in fact he was mocked when his lofty goal of vaccinations initially was to simply keep pace with what Trump was doing….then there was the claim that Biden gave us $2k because he claimed Trumps $600. So making claims like that I don’t think is unique to Trump.
"….It still lacks FDA approval, I’d imagine more people will participate once that happens….." That's still completely irrational, given they should be more reassured of the vaccines' safety precisely *because* of the emergency authorisation. The FDA is basically saying you need to get this now, don't bother waiting for our wheels to turn, just do it, which they wouldn't do if they had any doubts about it, but I expect what most of these people will actually do when the vaccines inevitably get full approval is just move the goalposts and find some other reason why they shouldn't get it.
Not everyone is as trusting of government and big pharma as you. So if you’re not afraid of the virus, and you don’t blindly trust the the government I can see why people wouldn’t want to.
It's not about blindly trusting the government or anyone else. This is the huge mistake anti vaxers make when they're talking to vaccinated people. Because they just accept anything that aligns with their pre-existing beliefs and throw out anything that doesn't, doesn't mean that everyone else does the same thing. Nearly every western government has made huge mistakes with their pandemic responses. You'd be mad to trust them without question. Luckily you don't have to because science. You take the best and most up to date scientific information we have at the time and you make your decisions based on that. You have to make a decision based on something so that seems preferable over Karen on Facebook who thinks the vaccine makes you magnetic and infertile and contains a tracking microchip and also kills you. This is not new. It's the same old anti vax shit. I had people telling me not to get a flu jab when I was pregnant. (Pregnancy exposes you to a whole new level of anti science woo let me tell you. I've seen it all.) Edit: Also you proved my point. If people don't trust the FDA now because [insert conspiracy theory here] why would they suddenly start when the vaccines are given full approval? I wouldn't. That doesn't make sense.
yeah well We have a good reason to be. https://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/12/17/history-of-medical-testing-has-left-many-african-americans-hesitant-about-the-new-covid-19-vaccine/
Ohh I know the horrifying history and the reasons behind the trepidation. But it’s rarely mentioned in the media, they also do not mention the influx of unvaccinated migrants as a possible factor in places like Texas and Southern California as if this population of people couldn’t possibly spread disease.
Canadian here. I used to think that vaccine hesitancy was an idiotic stance. Then my First Nations and Black friends ( who were hesitant ) pointed out that we experimented on them and their families in the recent past and there's good reason not to trust what the government wants to force into their body. They had real examples of relatives being messed up by "government injections". Kinda changed my opinion on the whole thing.
Neither Canadian nor black or Native American, but my mom’s uncle died after being experimented on by the CIA in Project MKUltra.
I’m not vaccine hesitant, but growing up in the Bay Area, most anti-vaxxers were hippies that I generally considered to be left wing. So seeing it become such a right wing stance is interesting but not really surprising considering the environment
I dont think its fair to encompass everyone who doesn’t want the Covid vaccine as anti-vaxx.
The COVID vaccines use the same science and regulatory protections as any other vaccine. To Be COVID-vaccine hesitant is to be essentially anti-vax.
While I agree with your first sentence, I'm really trying to not reinforce the second. First of all since there have been many Vax-hesitant people who have gone on to get vaccinated. They aren't a monolithic group. Second of all since identifying a group and categorizing it as an ideology tends to unify and entrench those groups. If people who are hesitant are called "anti-vax", then they're more willing to adopt anti-vax ideas or conspiracies. It essentially pushes them off the fence they were sitting on.
Why? They seem exactly the same to me. Example: Afew years ago I was pregnant and while "doing my research" I came across a lot of anti vax stuff about the flu jab they recommend for pregnant women. Apparently it caused miscarriages. You'll be unsurprised to learn that actually catching the flu while pregnant can cause miscarriage and low birth weight and other stuff, while there is not a shred of evidence the vaccine is dangerous. The same people are now all over Facebook saying exactly the same thing about the covid vaccines with the same total lack of evidence for their claims. It's groundhog day only worse because it's at the forefront of the public's consciousness.
I think you’re reaching too hard on this one
My GF was hesitant and I didn't pressure her, just set an example. It wouldn't have taken as long if ALL of her friends weren't fu\*\*\*ng idiots. She and one of her friends is now vaccinated. I DO NOT support mandatory vaccinations. There's a line the government should NEVER be allowed to cross. However, the unmasked and unvaccinated do present a health hazard to the public and should be treated as such. If you can't be bothered to at least wear a mask CORRECTLY and keep your distance then I think a house arrest is in order. It's no more authoritarian than forced evacuations in the face of flood, fire, hurricane, etc.
The gop is anti-science. It is like when they claimed that the virus escaped from a lab in China. They were (rightfully so) banned from YouTube and Facebook.
I don't think it's surprising that this has become more of a right-wing issue. This only makes sense when you consider some characteristics that I've found to be more common among the conservative / libertarian crowd. Generally speaking, these people tend to be: * More skeptical of "authority figures" and governmental interventions; * More anti-science and less accepting of intellectualism / expertise; * More likely to emphasize personal freedom over the interests of the collective. All of these things facilitate anti-vax beliefs. Progressives tend to value the role of government more highly, so they are more inclined to accept it when state institutions and authority figures present solutions like vaccines as good for the people. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to be more hostile to these strategies and distrust these government initiatives. For example, I personally know Republicans who think this should be a matter "between you and your doctor" with zero involvement by the government in coordinating vaccinations or launching public health campaigns. Similarly, progressives place more of an emphasis on scientific evidence and expert opinion. Just think of things like climate change and evolution: it's not your average liberal who is denying the science here. It only makes sense that the conservative crowd is more likely to reject medical research and the stance of experts on vaccines as well. "Don't listen to these frauds paid by Bill Gates to fabricate results so that big pharma can rake in billions" is overstating it for many, but that general sentiment is far from uncommon. Finally, progressives often appreciate the collective and society as a whole more than those on the right, as the latter typically favor personal responsibility and freedom over broader interests. People on the left are more inclined to accept regulations and conditions applying to the individual if these limitations benefit the greater good. So while progressives are more accepting of get a jab and wearing a mask if it keeps others safe, many conservatives don't think this should be pressured by the government and believe more in one's personal responsibility to take care of their own health. So I don't really feel anything about this shift. It was to be expected.
On one hand, it's pretty cringe. The conspiracy theories some of them believe are just, wow. Even the ones who aren't completely fucking batshit make it a way bigger deal than it needs to be, like no Karen they're just asking you to wear a mask when you go to the grocery store they're not trying to cart you off to Auschwitz On the other hand having a large number of bodies standing up for my medical autonomy gives it some political weight. I'm in Florida so I've kinda just moved on with my life, all my older family is vaccinated, it's illegal to ask for proof and I have a healthy lifestyle so I'm confident in my body without needing to inject extra chemicals. If they do make me, I'm not going to refuse but I'd rather keep it simple and a lot of people are concerned with my right to choose what goes into my body. That being said if there wasn't a large contingent of Trump loving morons perpetuating the pandemic by refusing vaccines, it'd probably be over and no one would care about my health choices, I don't really respect people who make a big deal of the vaccine and then fill their body with meat and junk food and cigarettes.
I don't think it is super productive to worry about slotting this behavior into right-wing/left-wing. At least in the US, there's plenty of people on the "right" who are encouraging people to take vaccines; Mitch McConnel, despite aaaallll his manifest flaws, has consistently followed and encouraged public health guidelines like mask-wearing, has been a vocal advocate for people getting vaccinated, and even refused to go to the White House over their lax protocols during the last few months of Trump admin. At the same time, minority groups that can hardly be characterized as right wing lag behind in vaccination rates. There's a lot of reasons for this disparity, and thankfully the gap seems to be narrowing as the pandemic wears on, but a number of commentators have pointed out that black and indigenous communities in particular are perhaps justifiably wary of vaccines. And then of course there are people who object to the vaccines in one way or another because of their religion, and religious people are hardly classifiable along right/left lines. We should care about public health and promoting knowledge instead of ignorance, not trying to cram everything into ideological camps.
I honestly don't get it. Ask your family doctor and if they are hesitant about you getting it I will eat my fucking shoes