How American conservatives turned against the vaccine | Hacker News Reader

How American conservatives turned against the vaccine

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29 pointsshankr53 comments

When the talking heads went from "the vaccines are rushed for political reasons" before the election, to "the vaccines are super effective, lets mandate their use" ... that showed pretty clearly that the politics were overriding any science.

Changing the definitions of "vaccination" and "vaccine effectiveness" to keep the narrative going wasn't great for anyone's credibility either.

I suppose if people could provide actual quotes of people, rather than “let me tell you what people said”, we could have a better discussion.

I’ve found that people tend to take comments completely out of context for political reasons.

As the video points out (7:50), 40% of conservatives were already saying they wouldn't get a hypothetical vaccine as early as May 2020, well before the election and before there was any certainty about effectiveness. Public health authorities have made a lot of bad mistakes in talking about vaccination but it seems to have only given people materials to build justification for their already-entrenched views.

> When the talking heads went from "the vaccines are rushed for political reasons" before the election, to "the vaccines are super effective, lets mandate their use"

That never happened. There were worries before the vaccine was released that it would be rushed for political reasons. That went away long before the election.

> Changing the definitions of "vaccination" and "vaccine effectiveness"

That never happened. Some right-wing "news" people said that they did. But they were paraphrasing and (mis)interpreting what people were saying specifically to pretend they were shifting definitions.

(I used never, when I mean "no significant instances". I'm sure some random talking head in a third-tier market or maybe even an isolated case of someone with a national microphone said something dumb.)

There is a video of Kamala Harris declining to get a vaccine if it is developed under Trump administration. I’ll try to find it in a bit. Good morning folks!

Edit: Actually she said she would take it if doctors say so, but not if Trump tells her to get one:

https://youtu.be/-dAjCeMuXR0

Thanks for adding your edit. Yes, she (and others) said they didn't trust Trump's word alone on a vaccine. The CDC and independent agencies (including from other countries) came out with a positive review of the vaccine before the election.

It's not partisan to think that the brazen conman in the White House might undermine our traditional public health institutions to try and make himself look good, as was in line with the rest of his behavior.

We can "both sides" all day long, and as a libertarian I in fact often do. But there are many topics where Trump irrefutably harmed our society to stroke his own ego, in a way that a status quo politician would not have.

Definitely, but she did literally politicize it. She could have left it at "I'll take it up on doctor's recommendation", but she didn't.

From my perspective, Harris was echoing what was already widespread common sense. Trump had four years of undermining longstanding American institutions (the "deep state"), which had just culminated in his fully committing to nonsensical covid denial [0]. Having an irrational autocrat at the helm destroys public trust, because in addition to the everpresent worry of nonpartisan political motives (eg approve this vaccine so some company can make money), we have to worry about more direct partisan political motives (eg approve this vaccine to make me look good).

[0] Still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, I personally thought Trump was going to come around to reality by June 2020. Doing so would have made him a shoe-in for a second term.

it was dumb of her to say that

Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g...

> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.

Jan 19th, 2022 (when i last looked it up): https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm

Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.

The page says when it was last updated, the first one was updated in 16th May 2018, the second one in 1st September 2021.

What are you suggesting happened between these two dates to prompt a change?

In your first comment you talk about before and after the election, which was November 2021.

Covid was not serious enough to trigger self-defence. Therefore, politics and economics overruled health. That or basic heartlessness.

I just found the video itself quite high-quality. Even though it affirms lot of what we already know but in a more researched nuanced way.

Also let's see how long it lasts here before getting flagged.

The potholer54 channel on YouTube has a lot of content by a conservative science journalist, trying to get through to more science skeptical conservatives.

He has a playlist on COVID. I watched more of his climate related stuff, but that was really good in terms of looking at the reality of things, reading citations on papers and such:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL82yk73N8eoWneZjR0wiidhGk...

The final video in particular, titled "Do you get it now? Why scientific reality doesn't care about your politics" is a good summary.

I think this is right.

It can also be put in terms of near/far thinking systems [1]. If something isn't serious enough to make you worry about yourself, it fails to trigger your near mode of cognition, which considers evidence in a more contextually sensitive way and allows for the possibility of deviations from your prior expectations. This leaves the entire topic to the far mode, which relies more on broad themes and trends and is more concerned with social image.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construal_level_theory

My perception, as someone with a fair amount of southern, conservative friends, is that the American progressive left absolutely did this to themselves. I distinctly remember many of my progressive friends urging others to never take the “Trump Vaccine”. Wildly, 6 months later when it was actually available, it became the Fauci vaccine and those same people said anyone who wasn’t getting it was a racist or a nazi. If you were vaccine hesitant going into it, this profound and entirely political change of heart from across the aisle probably just solidified your sneaking suspicion that there was something “they” weren’t telling you.

> My perception, as someone with a fair amount of southern, conservative friends, is that the American progressive left absolutely did this to themselves.

I mean reading the facebook posts of your conservative friends will definitely affirm that fact. Even conservatives in this video admitted "algorithm" influenced their decision making. So many data and evidence in the video talks about how the conservatives were highly skeptical of hypothetical vaccine. This was also due to the kind of media they consume(d). After ignoring all that evidence, you direct all the blame on progressive left. Don't you see the pattern?

Anytime I see someone blaming progressives for the actions of conservatives, I have to ask, what have conservatives done that justifies the actions of progressives?

Well, they spent a year telling us that no vaccine had ever been developed in less than 5 years and that Trump’s promises of a vaccine in less than a year were impossible. Then, within a month of the election, they said it had been developed and was perfectly safe. There’s some call for skepticism here.

Not to mention the FDA fighting to releasing the data it used to authorize the vaccine.

If that doesn't trigger a red flag then don't know what will.

They aren't fighting releasing the data. They are fighting spending the massive amount of money it would take to release it quicker than normal. The requested data includes a lot of protected patient medical information that must be redacted and that isn't even needed to independently check on the government's evaluation and decision making in approving the vaccines.

Why would they have collected that information if it wasn't needed, you might wonder. Simple, it is information that is needed if something bad happens during the trial such as a lot of bad side effects.

If the requestors limited their request to what they actually need for what they are claiming they want to do it would go a lot faster. Instead they are making a massively over broad request in bad faith.

That's just bullshit framing. The vaccines did not suddenly appear out of nowhere after the election, and "it can't be done" was not a widespread opinion up until then.

They should change the word conservative to the phrase "people who look at statistics".

For most age groups dying in a car accident is a bigger risk than COVID.

Trusting ones immune system over a novel substance with unknown long term effect is a reasonable position.

What's really odd is that the FDA is fighting to release the data they used to authorize the vaccine.

extremely pleased this didn't happen in the UK

our ruling right wing party (arguably to the left of the Democrats) have been heavily pushing for everyone to get their 3rd jab now for months

the universal trust of the state run NHS ("socialised medicine") also having a vast, vast impact (certainly more than the politicians)

Meanwhile, the intellectuals of America's right wing party are calling people who encourage others to get vaccinated government propagandists[1] and shilling cryptocurrencies[2]. This guy studied at Princeton and Harvard. He knows what he is doing.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/tedcruz/status/145710850449864295...

[2] https://mobile.twitter.com/tedcruz/status/149703184598422732...

It's really interesting to me how so many people, including in these comments, instantly decided that the vaccine was untrustworthy based on politics, and just... left it at that. Even though their own lives were on the line in many cases.

Why would you let blind trust or distrust in some political talking heads determine whether you, yourself, live or die? ... Why not check out the evidence for yourself, or talk to your doctor?

Even after watching people die terrible deaths regretting their choice not to get the vaccine, they're still rationalizing this choice based on politics.

I guess if the Red Tribe says something is bad, one must believe it as a matter of identity in the Red Tribe? Even at the cost of one's own life? Maybe the trust in the tribe's information sources is so absolute that it would never occur to a member to seek out potentially contrary sources?

This is definitely not just a Red Tribe problem, but it's one of the most tragic and pathetic manifestations I've ever seen.

For more information on this phenomenon, I highly recommend this introduction to "coalitional instincts" https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27168

There was a recent story that detailed red areas needing to provide places where people could be vaccinated in private so other people couldn't see them 'breaking' the tribes rules.

Similar to that joke about taking two Baptists fishing, because if you only take one, they'll drink all your beer.

There was also the weird finding that the better educated a Republican was about climate change, the more their opinion diverged from the science. The conclusion was that just as a nerdy religious person might know all the obscure rules better than an average person, scientifically literate Republicans could list all the correct talking points better because they understood them more.

It all makes me wonder, what is to be done? Is there any way to cut through this instinct to believe tribal bullshit? Are there examples of people doing it successfully in the past? What was their playbook? Can the same tricks work in today's information environment?

Gay marraige is often touted as a success in this regard.

Lots of conservatives said they were against it, because lots of conservatives said they were against it. When it became clear that even most conservatives didn't care, the whole thing collapsed and it was one of the fastest changes in reported opinion on record.

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/carrie-wofford/2014/03/...

So just convincing conservatives that other conservatives have the same sinking feeling of "are we the baddies?" might be worth looking into.

I had the impression that a lot of change came with the 2015 SCOTUS ruling. Which is a little unsettling - a lot of change only comes if one side imposes their will by law.

I could be wrong though. I haven't looked closely at the timing.

Coincidentally, I just added a link to a story from 2014 that was already celebrating the shift in attitudes.

Haha, thank goodness for that.

To your earlier point, "here are some card-carrying members of your tribe with a different opinion" definitely seems like a useful approach. If you can find those people, and they can maintain their card-carrying status after coming out of the closet with their contrarian opinion.

Trump is far more than a card carrying member of the tribe, yet was booed when he suggested taking the vaccine.

> Why would you let blind trust or distrust in some political talking heads determine whether you, yourself, live or die?

Very good point.

I think that's also part of peoples argument against vaccines.

Except the most important evidence by far wasn't from talking heads. Moderna and Pfizer both produced clinical trials that showed high effectiveness.

To discredit that evidence, you have to believe that both of these companies were willing to completely throw away their reputations with the public and regulators just to make a few bucks on some snake oil vaccines.

Or you have to believe that these companies trusted there would be no need to protect their reputations, because there would be a massive conspiracy to fudge the numbers and make the vaccines look effective.

Either of these beliefs is QAnon-tier conspiracism.

to be fair, these studies aren't the whole truth. they show an effect, but don't eliminate the possibility of unconsidered long-term consequences. but we do make those kinds of 'close enough' tradeoffs in medicine all the time and it seems to work out pretty well.

This is a disingenuous statement. It ignores the fact that there have been and are likely to be more long term issues from the virus too.

You're right about what it ignores but I don't think GP was being disingenuous.

You’re right; I meant those who make claims such as the one GP was mentioning do.

My bad for not being more clear.

Not disengenuous. They make a good point.

No one knows the long-term risk of the vaccine or the virus.

So being skeptical of either one is a reasonable position.

Being skeptical of both is absolutely fair; however, ignoring the virus’ potential for long-term impact is absolutely disingenuous and this is what most vaccine deniers participate in.

I looked at those trials and it did not appear to include people with prior exposure to sars-cov-2. What is a person who already had it supposed to make of it? That's great that it has high effectiveness for people without a history of exposure but its not some conspiracy to doubt its effectiveness if you already had the disease and its turned out that intuition was largely correct.

I don't have the data about incremental vaccine effectiveness for people who already had COVID. I don't think anyone does. Why are you so confident that the vaccines aren't effective for people who previously had it? It's not a one-and-done disease like chickenpox. More exposure = more immune system training.

Sorry, I'm not suggesting that vaccines don't have a positive impact on hospitilzations/deaths for a person who has already had covid, just that its quite marginal, especially for younger populations. I'm reasonably young with young children who already had exposure, it concerned me that the messaging did not seem to be very nuanced regarding the relative risks by age and prior exposure. It very much felt like my children were going to be force vaccinated with a drug that would not benefit them. I do believe if people were not voicing their concerns we would have seen that come to pass. I struggle to see the conspiratorial thinking involved here.

I see what you're saying. My son got the vaccine because he had no prior exposure as far as we know. The other one is too young and my understanding (from NYT) is that the companies are really struggling to show effectiveness below age 5. Personally we experienced little pressure to get our kids vaxxed but I don't know what your experience was like.

I think it's cult like thinking to believe these drug companies had good reputations to begin with.

"""Pfizer has been a “habitual offender,” persistently engaging in illegal and corrupt marketing practices, bribing physicians and suppressing adverse trial results. Since 2002 the company and its subsidiaries have been assessed $3 billion in criminal convictions, civil penalties and jury awards."""

I use Comcast and Pfizer because theyre monoplies, not becaus of their reputation.

The FDA is fighting to release the data it used to authorize the vaccine and there's numerous former FDA leadership on Pfizer's board?

I think the Branch Covidians might literally believe anything an authority figure tells them. It's scary to see.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2875889/#:....

"Companies do bad things" is not the same claims as "companies are willing to do arbitrarily bad things without any limit or regard for consequences".

In most cases, our distrust of institutions is nonzero but finite. See https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/bounded-distrust

That's abuse and cult victims language.

My abuser is bad but not THAT bad. I still love him.

The fact remains that they have a repeated pattern over many years of doing bad things and to claim they wouldn't follow this pattern with the vaccine is sort of cult like behavior.

The Vaccines were not really so highly effective, cause in the end people had to take like 4 doses, most basically gave up and accepted to live with corona.

1. Hardly anyone has taken four doses. Stop spouting sloppy nonsense, you quickly lose respect.

2. The latest evidence says that three doses provide a broad immune response that protects against severe disease long-term [1]. Variants may continue evading the immune system and causing symptomatic illness, but vaccine protection is still extremely meaningful if you don't want to get hospitalized or die from COVID.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/health/covid-vaccine-anti...

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