This isn’t supposed to be political and I don’t know if I’m misremembering, but weren’t the people who were originally anti-vaccine on the left? They were the original woke people (before it lost its meaning), and were usually hippies, vegans, people who walked bare foot, or crazy moms. It seemed like there was a switch all of a sudden in 2020.
Does anyone else remember or am I just crazy
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The “left vs right” idea is a extreme oversimplification of politic. I think it’s more accurate to call it “anti establishment” then left or right.
Not really. The crunchy-mom-to-alt-right pipeline is a thing. Antivaxxers has traditionally been flirting with anti-Semitism, protectionism and other far-right talking points.
Just because someone gives off hippie vibes doesn’t make them a hippie. Unfortunately.
Not quite 2020, but yeah — it wasn’t until the past 10-15 years or so that conservative politicians began really trying to appeal to the conspiracy theorist crowd, and Covid gave them a great tool to use to make their voters afraid of science.
People who are crunchy granola kinda loop back to right wing extremes.
yes it used to be left. naomi klein’s book doppelganger discusses the shift of the anti vaxxers into far right.
Honestly on the far ends of both sides, they are more similar than not. Both are anti-government, vaccine, or more so anti-structural body
Different type of anti vaxxer.
The hippy ones I know are genuinely wary of vaccines and they bring up things like seizure causation or the fake study linking it to autism, and they also don’t believe in fluoride etc.
Then there’s the covid type of anti vaxxer which are just skeptical OR in the “the government can’t tell me what to do” category.
Yes, anti-vax used to be more common among the hippy types, but I don’t think it is comparable to the current right. You never got left leaning news stations or director of health services telling people not to vaccinate or Democratic lawmakers trying to ban vaccines
That’s correct… but it’s complicated. Generally, most Americans support vaccination.
People who distrust the government were against it. This included right wing and left wing populations. For decades people who were into alternative medicine, or holistic medicine. Environmentalists also. This was primarily left wing progressives. Typically it was because they didn’t trust phama companies and what they put into these vaccines and other medicine. Remember, this is also about all medicine in general.
On the right you had people who distrusted the government for a similar reason but with a spicier flavor. This included people who just simply don’t wanna be told what to do, or who (like progressives) didn’t trust that the government has their best interest at heart.
Both groups, to some extent, believed that you didn’t need it and that your body could handle it. More so, that getting sick was both better for the herd and for your body’s immune system long term.
Covid changed this completely. It was one of the best PR campaigns of all time and transitioned every progressive to a vaxxer – no hate here just using a term. Many became virulently pro Vax, becoming violent or triggered at people who dont/didn’t vaccinate.
The only thing that allowed this to happen was the medias polarization of people who simply wanted bodily autonomy. INB4 people say “but they don’t want people to have bodily autonomy over abortion.” HEARD – believe me. Regardless, both parties should recognize that bodily autonomy is (at least) contentious because it’s YOUR body.
Edit to say – i grew up around anti vaxers… I’m not really one myself and I always get the flu shot and got all my shots as a kid, but i understand the hesitation with the covid vaccine. It was developed quick with VERY limited clinical trials and with significant scientific community backlash on blood clotting and other proven issues stemming from the vaccine. HEARD. I still got it but it was tempting for me since I am athletic and didn’t want to hemorrhage or have an aneurism or something like that. More than a few people have died from blood clots and other complications.
More than happy to discuss the risks pointed out by real and accredited doctors – not Joe Rogan.
It has united the far left and far right from the beginning.
The hippy, granola-munchers on one side and the “government can’t tell me what to do” on the other. It’s a weird Venn diagram.
Gun-loving liberals and conservative POCs are slightly less baffling.
There are stupid ideas, which aren’t left or light 😉
you def get wacky conspiracy theorists on either side, but I think they’re distinctly different flavors of anti-vax. Far left gets the “hippie, genuinely believes natural remedies are better and safer” type, while far right gets the “redneck, don’t tell me what to do, idc how it impacts others” type. Both suck, but I feel like the difference is enough to be notable.
this who left vs right is just to keep us distracted. anybody on the extreme sides is actually a total brainless turd.
I mean yeah there was definitely a group of like extreme hippy-types who opposed them. But there have always been small pockets of anti-vaxxers across the spectrum. Lots of religious-types against it.
But you’re right that it’s gotten more mainstream on the right (in the us at least) as of late. Shows how easily people are manipulated.
There were two schools.. first being the hippy-dippy homeopathic, natural living philosophy which was on the far left, and the other being, the “no one’s going to tell me what to do,” crowd on the far right. The right leaning mentality is what’s getting the most press at the moment.
Sure do. And these sorts of people still exist. People can be anti-vax for completely different reasons. It’s just that the COVID stuff sort of overshadowed the “all natural” crowd. All I care about these days is the end result of people’s decisions. It doesn’t matter why you didn’t vaccinate your children if they get measles. It doesn’t matter why you chose not to get the COVID vaccine, then have to go to the hospital.
Its important to Not conflate Hippies with being necessarily left wing. Some are, but theres also been very right Wing Hippie movements. In an extreme example, the original German Nazis were quite into Nature and mysticism. As Others pointed Out, anything anti establishment will attract people that are unhappy with the Status quo.
it was left wing & so was lots of conspiracy theories & it switched around 2014-2015 im guessing.
Not far left wing, but NPR listener, wine mom, Range Rover types were who used to be big on vaccine skepticism, and then suddenly it was like Covid made it Republicans vs. Autists and Grandpa’s Lungs.
Anti-Vax, along with FLat-Earthism, and Moon Landing Denial don’t really align along the left-right axis, they are generally more along anti-science and anti-authoritarian mindsets although they do tend to find more adherents in social groups closer to MAGA than your traditional right-wing.
>This isn’t supposed to be political and I don’t know if I’m misremembering, but weren’t the people who were originally anti-vaccine on the left?
You are 100% correct. It was the same with Anti drinking water Fluoridation too. What happened was the Australian Greens gradually took over the Environental Movement and DeepSixed these important issues.
Former Senator Norm Sanders had a bit to say about how that was done, starting with Dr. Bob Brown showing up at the 1982 Gordon below Franklin Dam protest.
It wasn’t political. It was just a fringe conspiracy theory until social media spread it like some kind of virus.
Probably location dependent.
In The Netherlands the biggest anti-vaxers originally were the Christians.
However, there was also a smaller anti-vax group that was getting bigger, that was more on the left.
I do remember that.
Other commenters saying hippies can be right wing so maybe it wasn’t true on the broader scale, but all the hippies I knew where liberal, and subsequently I at least perceived anti-vax to be a far left platform.