Thread by @gorskon

What most pundits, scientists, and doctors don't realize is that this is not a new alliance. Rather, it's the fruition of an effort by antivaxxers to court the far right. It started by portraying school vaccine mandates as an unacceptable government assault on "freedom." 1/

https://twitter.com/GYamey/status/1378703269594300420

Contrary to the view of many who always thought that the antivax movement was all hippy dippy crunchy lefties, antivax beliefs have always been roughly equally prevalent on the right and the left. Even @iamsambee got this wrong years ago. 2/ respectfulinsolence.com/2014/06/04/the…

Indeed, there has long been a strong right-wing conspiratorial wing of the antivaccine movement, dating back at least to the John Birch Society. Anyone ever hear of General Bert Stubblebine III’s Natural Solutions Foundation? 3/

Then there was Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), the longtime powerful @indgop pol who used to use his position as chair of the Oversight Committee to call @CDCgov officials to testify about a "vaccine-autism" link. 4/ respectfulinsolence.com/2012/11/23/rep…

Let's get to more recent history. A decade ago, antivaxxers started reaching out to the newly ascendant Tea Party with messages that vaccine mandates were an example of excessive government regulation that should be opposed. 5/

By 2013, antivaxxers were contributing heavily to @DarrellIssa's Congressional campaign. 6/ respectfulinsolence.com/2013/09/18/the…

.@DarrellIssa, for his part, returned the favor by continuing Burton's legacy of abusing his chair to call @CDCgov officials before his committee to ask them why CDC wasn't investigating "vaccine injury." 7/ respectfulinsolence.com/2012/12/04/the…

From there, the courting of the right by antivaxxers continued. In 2016, antivaxxers courted @jasoninthehouse and other @GOP heavyweights at the federal level to "investigate @CDCgov." 8/ respectfulinsolence.com/2016/06/22/ant…

Meanwhile, in my state, @delbigtree, along with @MI4VaxChoice and other antivaxxers, descended on the Michigan State House. Unfortunately, they had a fairly warm reception from @MIGOP. 9/ respectfulinsolence.com/2016/10/28/nob…

What really turbocharged the alliance between antivaxxers and the right, though, was the battle by @DrPanMD and pro-vaccine politicians to pass SB277, the California law that eliminated nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates in 2015. 10/

Then came Donald Trump, which took the seeds of right wing antivaccine activism that had been germinating the last few years and laid a ton of fertilizer on it. 11/

By the time Trump became President, even though the prevalence of antivaccine views still remained roughly the same on the right and left, the *activist* wing of the antivaccine movement had shifted markedly right. 12/

Antivaxxers in MI, for example, started promoting "make measles great again" bills; for example, this one if passed would have neutered the ability of @MichiganHHS to develop new rules to improve vaccine uptake and hamstringed local health officials. 13/ respectfulinsolence.com/2017/04/05/why…

Antivaxxers also pushed bills that would have required bogus "informed consent" about "fetal parts" in vaccines. 14/ respectfulinsolence.com/2018/06/12/sen…

Meanwhile, @ohiogop and @ohiogopsenate became rife with antivaxxers, to the point where antivaxxers bragged about how many allies they had in the Ohio State House. 15/ respectfulinsolence.com/2019/11/13/ohi…

This sort of thing has been going on all over the country, with @GOP either pandering to, playing footsie with, or overtly embracing the antivaccine movement. 16/ respectfulinsolence.com/2019/04/19/gop…

Basically, what happened is that "freedom" and "parental rights" were the "in" that antivaxxers used to entice the right. Once the alliance was made, then, though, the right proved as open to antivax conspiracy theories as it has been to #QAnonCult. 17/ sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-19-pande…

That's why, once the #COVID19 #pandemic began, unsurprisingly, antivaxxers rapidly allied themselves with antimaskers and COVID cranks to oppose all public health interventions to slow the spread of the pandemic. 18/ respectfulinsolence.com/2020/12/02/ant…

It was thus a natural progression that right wing propaganda organs disguised as "think tanks" like @aier, with flacks like @PhilWMagness and @naomirwolf, have promoted #COVID19 misinformation under the guise of "freedom" and combatting "tyranny." 19/

Add to that grifters like Scott Atlas of @HooverInst, more right wing propagandists disguised as a "think tank" (but one using its affiliation with @Stanford to gain the patina of academic credibility), and the activist wing of the antivaccine movement is firmly right wing. 20/

As a result, "freedom," "parental rights," etc., are now dog whistles for the antivaccine movement and, more recently, for antimaskers and #COVID19 cranks. 21/ respectfulinsolence.com/2015/02/20/blo…

And, yes, it is true that there are left-wing antivaxxers, such as @RobertKennedyJr, but, unlike the case on the right, they do not have nearly the reach and they are marginalized by @TheDemocrats, not celebrated. 22/ respectfulinsolence.com/2016/08/01/jil…

Unfortunately, this embrace of antivaccine messages by the right and populist movements has real and very negative consequences, as we have seen over the last year or so. 23/23

Forgot to mention, here's an example of the sort of politician that's embraced antivaccine views. He was my state senator for eight years. 23a/23

https://twitter.com/gorskon/status/1378512344066707460?s=20