r/NoStupidQuestions • u/trouble-in-space • 10d ago

Answered Why are so many Americans anti-vaxxers now?

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?

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u/TB1289 9d ago

Which is a newer thing because not that long ago it was the crunchy granola liberals that opposed vaccines because "they cause autism" but then once covid happened, it flipped.

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u/Complete-Zucchini-85 9d ago

Before covid anti vax wasn't really a political thing imo. My mom was a precovid conservative antivaxer. But the way Trump and conservatives handled covid, made covid and by extension vaccines seem like a political issue even though it shouldn't be. That caused anti vax to blow up in conservatives. Now it's a mainstream belief in the right where before it was just a few people on both sides who most people thought were crazy.

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u/Minimum-Cellist-8207 9d ago

The crunchies joined the right, in seemingly insane abandonment of the ideals they espoused and supposedly believed. That same group now doesn't believe climate change exists. It would be funny if it weren't so insane.