Republicans: continued

[JimC]

Hesitation is one thing; as reports of (rare) side effects come in, it is quite natural for a degree of hesitancy. Militant anti-vaxxers are quite another thing, and everything that I've read suggests that they correlate fairly well with right-wing conservative views.

[Sean Hayden]

They may. But I'm sure as causes go, it sucks.

Belonging to the wrong political party is doing too much explanatory work everywhere.

[JimC]

Not so much explanatory, as correlative. Being a Republican doesn't cause you to be an anti-vaxxer, but it seems pretty clear that the mindset to be an anti-vaxxer is one that is a better fit with a Trump Republican than otherwise...

And then there have been graphs and stats posted here previously (Tero or Hermit?) showing a distinct correlation between Trump-voting districts and lower vaccination rates (as well as higher Covid deaths)

[Seabass]

They may. But I'm sure as causes go, it sucks.

Belonging to the wrong political party is doing too much explanatory work everywhere.

This ain't just political parties. This is culture war. The Republican/conservative culture is pretty much 90%+ reactionary at this point.

[Seabass]

Not so much explanatory, as correlative. Being a Republican doesn't cause you to be an anti-vaxxer, but it seems pretty clear that the mindset to be an anti-vaxxer is one that is a better fit with a Trump Republican than otherwise...

And then there have been graphs and stats posted here previously (Tero or Hermit?) showing a distinct correlation between Trump-voting districts and lower vaccination rates (as well as higher Covid deaths)

In the 90s, there were anti-vaxxers on both sides of the political spectrum, but as always, the intransigent people who get stuck on bad ideas filter over to the right, and people who are capable of re-examining and re-evaluating their views filter over to the left. Anti-vax is mostly Republican now. Even most of the celebrities on the liberal side who used to be anti-vax dropped the issue a long time ago.

[Hermit]

Not so much explanatory, as correlative. Being a Republican doesn't cause you to be an anti-vaxxer, but it seems pretty clear that the mindset to be an anti-vaxxer is one that is a better fit with a Trump Republican than otherwise...

And then there have been graphs and stats posted here previously (Tero or Hermit?) showing a distinct correlation between Trump-voting districts and lower vaccination rates (as well as higher Covid deaths)

NineBerry might have posted some stats too.

From a few months ago:

Viruses don't care who you vote for.

Right-wingers tend to see less need to protect themselves from them, so...

Sure, but they're a risk to the whole community not just other right-wingers.

While it is true that viruses don't care who you vote for, it is also misleading because infections are more prevalent and/or spreading faster among the Republicans than Democrats, both in Congress and the US population at large.

Congressional Republicans Infected With Covid Three Times More Than Democrats Dec 18, 2020
...
In the House of Representatives, 29 members of the GOP have announced positive tests, making up just under 15% of all Republicans in the chamber.

After Richmond’s positive test, there are now 10 Democrats in the House that have tested positive, along with an additional presumed coronavirus case back in March from Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), who did not take a test.

The 11 make up around 4.7% of Democrats in the House.

The gap is even more stark in the Senate, where 15.4% of Republicans have tested positive, compared with 4.2% of the Democratic caucus.
(Link)

My guess that similar differences between progressives and reactionaries can be seen in other countries.

I could not find an updated version. Maybe someone else can.

[Sean Hayden]

It's complicated.

Results: In order of magnitude, antivaccination attitudes were highest among those who (a) were high in conspiratorial thinking, (b) were high in reactance, (c) reported high levels of disgust toward blood and needles, and (d) had strong individualistic/hierarchical worldviews.

https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2018-03974-001

--but, but, that's Republicans!

[Hermit]

It's complicated.

Certainly, but there is a correlation between who people voted for and rates of vaccination that are difficult to dismiss as mere coincidence. I raided voting results by state from here and vaccination rates by state from there, dumped them into a spreadsheet program and let its scatterplot function do its stuff. It came up with this:

[JimC]

Scatterplots FTW!

[Tero]

Unlike Democrat, Republicans love this counry. So much that they now want to leave it.

[Seabass]

[Sean Hayden]

It's complicated.

Certainly, but there is a correlation between who people voted for and rates of vaccination that are difficult to dismiss as mere coincidence. I raided voting results by state from here and vaccination rates by state from there, dumped them into a spreadsheet program and let its scatterplot function do its stuff. It came up with this:

What is the significance of this relationship?

I believe the idea being put forward here is either that whatever makes one a Republican may also contribute to one developing anti-vaccination attitudes, or that becoming a Republican makes it more likely you'll develop anti-vaccination attitudes.

But I'm guessing that the attributes that contribute most to anti-vaccination attitudes, things like conspiratorial thinking, should exist fairly evenly between parties. It's interesting to note that another study in Italy found no significant relationship between conservative views and vaccine hesitancy, and the study about "root-attitudes" mentioned above used data from ~24 nations.

[JimC]

It's complicated.

Certainly, but there is a correlation between who people voted for and rates of vaccination that are difficult to dismiss as mere coincidence. I raided voting results by state from here and vaccination rates by state from there, dumped them into a spreadsheet program and let its scatterplot function do its stuff. It came up with this:

What is the significance of this relationship?

I believe the idea being put forward here is either that whatever makes one a Republican may also contribute to one developing anti-vaccination attitudes, or that becoming a Republican makes it more likely you'll develop anti-vaccination attitudes.

But I'm guessing that the attributes that contribute most to anti-vaccination attitudes, things like conspiratorial thinking, should exist fairly evenly between parties. It's interesting to note that another study in Italy found no significant relationship between conservative views and vaccine hesitancy, and the study about "root-attitudes" mentioned above used data from ~24 nations.

If you look at current examples of conspiratorial thinking in the US, they seem to mostly occur in the right in general, and in Trump Republicans in particular. If you are willing to suspend critical thinking to believe that Trump won the election, then you can fairly easily accept all sorts of conspiracy theories about the virus and vaccination.

And the correlation in the scatterplot is remarkably clear. As always, it is difficult to infer clear causation from such correlation, but it certainly implies that voting for Trump and refusing vaccination have a real degree of linkage.

[Seabass]

The Republicans are anti-science and reactionary. And there's all the anti-vax/mask/shut-down rhetoric and covid-is-a-hoax rhetoric coming from Trump and right-wing media. What's the mystery here?

[Sean Hayden]

....and it's apparently working as more Republicans have picked up anti-vaccination attitudes while Democrat attitudes appear to have stayed roughly the same through covid.

There's no mystery there. The Republican party appears to be encouraging anti-vaccination attitudes.