It is if they’re also deluded enough to actually believe all the nonsense being spread about the vaccine.
We have people out there literally quitting their jobs rather than get vaccinated. That makes absolutely no sense, unless you charitably assume they really do believe the nonsense.
My daughter is a supervisor for a retail services company which recently instituted a “vax or go” policy. One of her reps was scared to get the shot — or even talk to her doctor — because her sister was bombarding her with woo, especially the “magnetized” trope. My daughter told the rep that she was fully vaxxed (including booster), then held a spoon to her nose. Which promptly fell off. Rep called her doctor then&there, and got the first dose the next day. Which relieved my daughter, since this is probably the best rep on her team and she would have been sorry to lose her.
I saw a comedy show last night and the comedian was joking that he’d love it if the vaccine made him magnetized. It’s like a super power!
Why does this strategy fail to persuade so many other anti-magvaxxers? I’m pretty sure I’ve read of it being tried before.
It probably wouldn’t have been convincing if the rep had been a true anti-magvaxxer rather than someone who had been intimidated by a TA-M. She was actually relieved to have the woo debunked because it resolved the conflict between her intellect and her mind monsters.
(And on re-reading it occurs to me that I should have been more specific: it was the spoon, not my daughter’s nose, that fell off.)
I fear the latter would have had the opposite effect.
There is a large subset of Republicans, including many elected leaders and public figures, that are simply engaging in an orchestrated campaign of oppositional defiance, all the #IWillNotComply bullshit.
The audacity is the point. If you come out against a piece of social spending or foreign policy, there probably are actually talking points and facts you can use to support your position. Even if your facts are distorted and your true motivation is nothing more than Let’s Go Brandon, you still have the cover of an actual position.
This used to be a good thing, politically — it was the way opposition politics worked. But to this new breed of Republican, having an actual reality based reason for your policy position dilutes the message instead of strengthening it, because the message is now - I WILL NOT COMPLY, I’m objecting to EVERYTHING.
The way to drive home this point is to object to something that’s obviously neutral, non-partisan and good for society - like a robust public vaccination campaign in the middle of a pandemic. There’s no mixed messaging there, it’s a totally audacious position.
And the audacity is the point.
Nothing more than a two year old repeating “won’t “ over and over in response to anything.
I think you’re on to something, I have noticed that the “I WILL NOT COMPLY” is being applied to their use of “woke” as a slur, they are not using that word just to dismiss acts of social justice, the right wing is also adding vaccination efforts to their meanings of what “woke” means to them.
On that note I will have to notice that as they are doing in California a lot of the “I will not comply” rhetoric from a loud minority is against vaccination and masking efforts in school boards, I will say that one item that was missed from the Virginia election when the media blamed just Critical Race Theory for the Democratic loses in Virginia, was that that rhetoric also included that twisted anti vaccine “choice” message at the same time the Orwellian lies against CRT were used. It was a big factor in that election, IMHO.
You may want to reread that article. Both the vaccine AND infection contribute to herd immunity. The article says that red counties may be catching up since so many people have been infected. But it also points out the the immunity granted by the vaccine is stronger than that granted by infection.
Strange, I thought that is what I said. I wanted to, anyway.
I dunno, I think if her nose fell off, but the spoon didn’t fall with the nose, that would be amazing.
I can add too that my mom has long been into alternative medicine, like homeopathy and natural medicine and only got the vaccine because her job required it. My dad had already gotten it when it was available. Neither votes, but my mom is pretty religious and pretty conservative. My parents are in the Seattle area.
I work with a bunch of anti-vax/Trump supporters. A while back our young admin was trying to convince one guy to get vaccinated, and he repeated the magnetized argument. She said that was nonsense and that she had been vaxxed, so he went and got a magnet and held it to her arm. Of course, the magnet fell off, so he searched for a more powerful magnet and tried again, with the same result.
You think that convinced him? Of course not. It changed into nanochips/government tracking us/Bill Gates enslaving us.
To her credit, she convinced a coworker who seems to get her news from facebook and YouTube videos to get vaxxed. She’s more patient than I am.
Even if either magnet had stuck, that would only prove that she was made of some ferrous metal rather than flesh&bone. Which would shortly have made it into the MAGAverse as yet another horror of vaccination.
I’m honestly surprised and delighted that an actual demonstration convinced someone, somewhere that the vaccine didn’t magnetize people. I expect it wouldn’t work on most people who held that belief.
This kind of irrationality–“I won’t believe my own lying eyes”–may not be limited to anti-vaxxers. In the late '90s when I was in seventh grade, I did a science project demonstrating that, contrary to that Simpsons episode set in Australia, the Coriolis force does not act upon small bodies of water such as a toilet bowl or sink. I showed this by setting up a tub of water with a plug in the bottom well in advance, to let it fully settle, then pulling the plug and showing it drain with no swirl. Then I refilled it and poured it in such a way as to cause it to swirl the wrong way when draining. Then I made it swirl the right way, just to show it could be done and there was nothing weird about the container. I was not prepared for the anger and flat-out denial of my classmates. They had all seen that episode, and they not only refused to believe it wasn’t accurate; they yelled at me for…I dunno, trying to trick them? I often think fear of needles or medicine in general plays into anti-vax sentiment, but accepting the conclusion I was demonstrating about the Coriolis force wouldn’t have required enduring any treatment or injection. There’s something more to this pathology.
Ah, but, you see: you were setting up a demonstration to prove/disprove something. In their minds, therefore, by necessity, naturally, you must have been acting upon the demonstration to make it show your desired result – or else why would you bother making the effort? To their minds it is not possible to conduct a good faith experiment because someone always stands to profit, benefit or gain prestige/standing from the result.
Move that a couple of decades further in life and you end up with people who will refuse to believe that these vaccines were honestly developed well and right.
…or that regular vaccines are safe and effective, or that managing global climate change requires to cut back CO2 emissions, or that recent immigrants are assimilating generationally at the same pace as always, or any other thing for which evidence is repeatedly produced.
BTW the RW were using the phrase well before CoVid came along, in reference to things like gun control, removal of religious displays, etc.
I should clarify–she convinced a different coworker to get vaccinated.
We had a company “town hall” on Thursday, where the OSHA Vaccine Mandate was discussed. Much wailing, gnashing of teeth, threats to quit happened. Buried in the discussion was the latest open enrollment update–those who are not vaccinated will pay an extra $90/month for health insurance.
Just this? What about unable to use common sense or the mushy stuff inside their noggin?
You know, it doesn’t help that every other commercial I see is from a law firm telling me to join a lawsuit against J&J (Johnson & Johnson) because they knowingly sold us talcum powder with cancer causing agents in it. For profit.
It’s exhausting to live on this planet.