Hand-to-hand combat
with crackpots
For better or worse, inventing and spewing anti-vaccine lies and crackpottery is protected free speech. Actually, it is for the worse for public health, democracy, respect for experts and empirical facts. Arguably devastating. Yes, vaccine denial is inherently anti-democratic at least in terms of state of mind. When the denial mindset manifests in politics, it is in fact anti-democracy.
A NYT opinion (not paywalled) discusses the ongoing rise and toxic influence of vaccine denialism. Innocent people will be needlessly and avoidably killed. But, a pile of corpses doesn't faze vaccine crackpots and deniers. Vaccine denial is and probably always has been, more or less, a faith-based religion, not science. Anti-vaccine religion, like all or nearly all others, cannot be rationally engaged with.
What is troubling about this opinion by a non-expert is their observation that even trying to calmly and respectfully engage with vaccine deniers may be more damaging than beneficial. That is something I do not recall having heard before, but maybe my memory is faulty on this point.
The NYT opinionator, Jessica Grose, is not a vaccine expert. She is an opinion person. She describes a YouTube program where a vaccine science believer, Dr. Mikhail Varshavski, a New Jersey-based family medicine physician. He is also a medical social media influencer better known as Dr. Mike. On the show, he tussled with vaccine science deniers for a few hours and they bickered about how good or bad a job RFK Jr. is doing with public health and public health matters.
Gorse believes that Kennedy’s supporters do not have a reasonable grasp of the science they argue. I agree with that. Despite truth in some of the facts they recite, the facts are usually grossly distorted, or cherry picked and taken out of context. Their arguments fail on fundamental principles of fact, reason, science and last but maybe equally important, the Principle of Charity.
Gorse commented that she wrote a column suggesting that public debates like this one with Dr. Mike would be a useful way to rebuild Americans' trust in vaccines. She believed in the sunshine effect of publicly airing anti-vaccine arguments and debunking them with evidence and reason. Apparently, the Dr. Mike episode and other things changed her mind about that. She lost faith that debating staunch advocates of Kennedy's crackpot public health agenda can build public trust back.
Her core conclusion is that in a format where someone with real scientific expertise is put on the same level as an passionate layperson, is not going to work as long as Kennedy is in office. She wrote:
As of Dec. 12, there were 126 confirmed cases of measles in an ongoing outbreak in South Carolina, and 119 of those cases were among unvaccinated people. Almost all of the people affected were under 18. The United States is on track to lose its measles elimination status. While a vast majority of parents are still giving their children basic childhood inoculations, anti-vaccine influencers continue to chip away at the public’s trust.
I could probably be construed as a public health influencer, and I will continue to write about these issues, even though I worry that it is increasingly futile. I just think they are wasting their time debating MAHA types on social media or podcasts.
I agree in part with her analysis and conclusion. But the problem is broader, deeper and more threatening than just Kennedy's seriously threatening public health crackpottery. The big problem is decades of bigoted, corrupt, authoritarian demagoguery by MAGA propagandists and their recent predecessors like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. This is not a problem confined to public health disasters like Trump putting the crackpot Kennedy in power. This same problem now pervades and poisons most or all of government and most or all pro-democracy, pro-public interest government functions. The American public has been taught and learned to (i) trust demagoguery, crackpots and intolerant authoritarianism, and (ii) distrust actual experts and tolerant democracy.
Our situation cannot be undone just by making Kennedy go away. It very likely cannot be undone even by making Trump go away. MAGA has sunk deep roots into (1) the minds of tens of millions of Americans, and (2) pro-democracy and pro-public interest federal functions. That did not happen overnight or in a year. It took decades and tens of billions of dollars to poison, persuade and trap those minds. It was a massive, prolonged war for minds. MAGA authoritarianism won. That war and trapped enough minds so that MAGA authoritarianism is in power.
The thing is though, Gorse and others have not figured out an effective way to combat pro-authoritarian MAGA demagoguery. Unfortunately, there probably is no effective way to do that. That belief is based on the usual culprits, human cognitive biology and social behavior. The ineffective sunshine method to kill nonsense that Gorse still engages with despite her lost faith, is probably the best non-violent weapon that pro-democracy, pro-truth people have to fight with.
Although fighting dark free speech and demagoguery with honest speech isn't fully effective, maybe it will be just barely effective enough to save our democracy and rule of law. However, if anyone has a better weapon or tactic to suggest, it would be great to hear about it.
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