Thread by @gorskon

What if...and hear me out on this...

Vaccine mandates had *already* been politicized by the right BEFORE the pandemic, and that politicization has only been super turbocharged since #COVID19. It's not as though I wasn't writing about this five years ago and earlier... 1/

https://twitter.com/karenvaites/status/1490689901301542913

For example, from 2017... 2/respectfulinsolence.com/2017/02/22/in-…

Also in 2017, @MIGOP was trying very hard to weaken school vaccine mandates in Michigan... 3/ sciencebasedmedicine.org/make-measles-g…

By 2018, @MIGOP candidates were holding openly antivaccine "discussion forums" during the primary campaign...in my congressional district! 4/ respectfulinsolence.com/2018/08/03/jef…

Indeed, by the end of 2018, I was worrying that @gop had become the antivaccine party. 5/ respectfulinsolence.com/2018/10/25/the…

I was too optimistic. By 2019, antivaxxers were bragging about how many @ohiogop allies they had in the Ohio statehouse. 6/ respectfulinsolence.com/2019/11/13/ohi…

In 2019, @Oregon_GOP legislators walked out to deny @ORDems a quorum to pass legislation strengthening school vaccine mandates in Oregon. That's how much antivax beliefs had infiltrated @gop BY three years ago. 7/ respectfulinsolence.com/2019/05/14/ore…

Indeed, by 2019, @gop was also openly opposing any state attempt to tighten up the requirements to receive an exemption from school vaccine mandates and trying to pass laws loosening them. 8/ respectfulinsolence.com/2019/04/19/gop…

The bottom line? Vaccine mandates had been politicized before the pandemic started, and it wasn't @TheDemocrats or liberals who did the politicizing. It was conservatives and @GOP. I could provide many more examples dating back to 2015 and earlier, but I'll restrain myself. 9/

Worse, the unholy fusion of conservative activism and the antivaccine movement has taken a truly scary turn of late. 10/10 respectfulinsolence.com/2022/01/28/why…