Thread by @ggreeneva

“Vaccine resisters can’t be persuaded if they feel disrespected,” the piece last week in National Review argued. That’s wrong
— the ‘disrespect’ here lies in approaching a resister such as this man as if facts and reason led him to his stance.

He thinks, as he prepares to leave the hospital after a stay in the ICU, that governments are “trying to shove [the vaccine] down your throat.”

Don’t perform ‘respect’ for him by arguing the facts. Show him the respect of allowing him to decide what consequences he can tolerate.

What consequences? More expensive insurance premiums and co-pays, once the vaccines receive final approval. Bans on air and rail travel. Whatever consequences employers impose on people with no medical reason to refuse vaccination.

People can make their own choices. But …

… they can also absorb the social consequences of that choice. Treating each of us as mature citizens who can accept the consequences of our decisions is a full measure of due respect.

Look, I agree that it’s unhelpful to belittle Trump supporters. What I advocate is taking them at their word — and accepting that some, maybe even many, of them reject the evidence-and-reason based epistemological system that dorks like me use. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

Now of course, that’s their right! But treating such fellow Americans with respect, IMO, requires honoring that some people hold falsifiable beliefs—such as “Trump won the 2020 election” — for reasons that can’t be disabused by a recitation of facts.

I’m uninterested in talking down to such people — who don’t make up _all_ of Trump’s support base, to be clear — by citing the latest Snopes or Poynter fact check. That’s an exercise that seems as useful to me as dancing about architecture.

But I’m also uninterested in “finding common ground” — as if those of us who accept the 2020 election results, or who know that vaccines don’t turn people into magnets, have the burden of “reaching across our political chasm [and] respecting our differences.”

What I’d much rather do: _acknowledge_ those differences — but then move on with the work of governing.

Biden beat Trump in the 2020 election. Stopping the coronavirus from afflicting people requires the use of vaccines. And I’ve lost interest in arguing over stuff such as this.