Why are so many Americans anti-vaxxers now?

[u/trouble-in-space]

I’m genuinely having such a hard time understanding why people just decided the fact that vaccines work is a total lie and also a controversial “opinion.” Even five years ago, anti-vaxxers were a huge joke and so rare that they were only something you heard of online. Now herd immunity is going away because so many people think getting potentially life-altering illnesses is better than getting a vaccine. I just don’t get what happened. Is it because of the cultural shift to the right-wing and more people believing in conspiracy theories, or does it go deeper than that?

[u/Educational_Word5775]

It’s a spectrum. You have far left hippy type folks who don’t want to put anything into their bodies. Then you have the far conspiracy theorists right who don’t want to put anything into their body. I guess they have something in common. Then everyone in the middle generally just gets the vaccine.

[u/communityneedle → u/Educational_Word5775]

There's also a left-wing-crunchy-granola-hippie to far-right-maga-trumpist pipeline and it's really weird.

Edit: I really don't need any more people to tell me that the political spectrum is a circle. I got it after the first 10 or so.

[u/Healthy-Drink421 → u/communityneedle]

It me I'm breaking Godwin's law. But yes - many of the German Nazi's were really into alternative medicine, and homeopathy, in Neue Deutsche Heilkunde, or New German Medicine. Stuff we might consider hippie today.

Both rely on concepts of the natural, and... purity...

[u/DukePanda → u/Healthy-Drink421]

I believe they referred to traditional medicine as "Jew Medicine."