The guitarist, who is British, previously railed against COVID-19 vaccine mandates on a podcast with the U.S. presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist.
It’s largely because the latest right-wing dogwhistle is anti-vaxx. Before Covid and the Trump presidency, most anti-vaxxers were left wing hippies living in communes and taking colloidal silver for cancer treatment or having their naturopath distill the vibrations in their body water to treat sickness.
I agree with everything here except that the right wing anti-vax nonsense began with trump and Covid. That definitely accelerated things, but there was a strong anti-vax sentiment in the Republican Party even before trump.
During the GOP primary debates for the 2016 election, every single candidate cast doubt on the standard childhood vaccine regimen. The candidate who came closest to supporting vaccinating children was Rand Paul. And even though he definitely knows better, he argues vaccines should be given at a slower rate to “spread out” the effects.
I think the aversion to vaccines comes from the republican mistrust of science and expertise in general. This “know nothing”ism has been growing for a while - see Sarah Palin in the 2012 election.
My recollection is that the shift started pre-covid. Anti-vaxxers were originally predominantly left leaning but I think it hit the 50/50 range somewhere around 2012-2014. At least in the US. Trump shifted it even more, then covid+Trump just completely inverted where it had been a generation prior.
He’s a bigot too.
It’s weird how correlated these things are. Are all racists antivax? No. Are all antivaxers racist? No.
But the overlap is so high that it’s unsurprising to learn someone who is one of these things is also the other.
It’s largely because the latest right-wing dogwhistle is anti-vaxx. Before Covid and the Trump presidency, most anti-vaxxers were left wing hippies living in communes and taking colloidal silver for cancer treatment or having their naturopath distill the vibrations in their body water to treat sickness.
I agree with everything here except that the right wing anti-vax nonsense began with trump and Covid. That definitely accelerated things, but there was a strong anti-vax sentiment in the Republican Party even before trump.
During the GOP primary debates for the 2016 election, every single candidate cast doubt on the standard childhood vaccine regimen. The candidate who came closest to supporting vaccinating children was Rand Paul. And even though he definitely knows better, he argues vaccines should be given at a slower rate to “spread out” the effects.
I think the aversion to vaccines comes from the republican mistrust of science and expertise in general. This “know nothing”ism has been growing for a while - see Sarah Palin in the 2012 election.
My recollection is that the shift started pre-covid. Anti-vaxxers were originally predominantly left leaning but I think it hit the 50/50 range somewhere around 2012-2014. At least in the US. Trump shifted it even more, then covid+Trump just completely inverted where it had been a generation prior.
The “vaccines cause autism” crowd are what comes to my mind.
The Venn diagram is damn near a perfect circle.
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