Why Are So Many Trumpers Anti-Vax?
The Covid vaccine was developed under former President Donald Trump's leadership. He promoted and took the vaccine himself. Yet, many of Trump's supporters oppose the vaccine. Why? This question has been one of the great mysteries of Covid misinformation. A new study published last December and recently highlighted by PsyPost sheds some light on this issue, but also leaves me with more questions.
Vaccine hesitancy pre-dates Covid, and for a while was more often associated with upper-income liberals than right-wingers. After a measles outbreak at Disneyland in 2015, comedian Jon Stewart mocked the "crazy wellness ideas" of "science-denying affluent California liberals" for causing the outbreak. These views still exist on the Left. Anti-vaxxer and Democrat presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. currently polls at 13.6% in the RCP average. But Covid vaccine hesitancy has and continues to be a bigger problem on the Right.
The study found that mistrust of public health institutions, not Trump support, was key to understanding vaccine hesitancy. So it seems that it's not Trump support per se that leads to vaccine hesitancy; it's that Trump supporters are more likely to mistrust public health institutions. This still doesn't explain, however, why those who mistrust both Trump and public health institutions are more likely to be vaccinated (56%) than those who mistrust public health institutions but trust Trump (41%).
The mistrust problem is not without justification. There are good reasons to be skeptical of government agencies. They've lied to us before. And there are good reasons to be skeptical of drug companies. As the opioid epidemic showed, some deceived us and put profits over the welfare of their customers.
So in the end, I believe the study doesn't get at a larger problem with vaccine hesitancy — the issue wasn't just a mistrust of public health institutions. As the study showed, many who mistrust public health institutions still got the vaccine. But there was also a mistrust of publicly available data, and mistrust of a multiplicity of sources, both public and private, that studied the vaccine and all concluded the same thing: Covid vaccines are safe and save lives.
What Else We're Reading
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“Fear not” is a frequent command in the Bible, but most pastors feel churchgoers aren’t getting the message.
A Lifeway Research study finds almost 7 in 10 U.S. Protestant pastors (69%) believe there is a growing sense of fear within their congregations about the future of the nation and world. Additionally, more than 3 in 5 (63%) say their churches have a similar increasing dread specifically about the future of Christianity in the U.S. and around the world.
A new study conducted by researchers from Michigan State University suggests that the battle against online disinformation cannot be won by content moderation or banning those who spread fake news. Instead, the key lies in early and continuous education that teaches individuals to critically evaluate information and remain open to changing their minds.
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