Fascinating poll from Canada showing that people who have been vaccinated for Covid-19 have different views of Ukraine and Russia than non-vaccinated people:
The article is paywalled, but according to my source the survey found that 26 percent of unvaccinated people in Canada believe Russia invading Ukraine is justified, vs. 2 percent of vaccinated people. My source suggests the unvaccinated are becoming pro-authoritarian, but I would say they have a strong reaction against whatever narrative is being pushed by the mainstream. If the government and the press say Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine the victim, that must be wrong.
I find this a fascinating insight into how people form opinions and how the media landscape is evolving. Information about either vaccines or Ukraine is not likely to change opinions because those opinions are rooted in a deep attitudes toward the world, or at least toward information flows.
I suspect far from being "authoritarian" unvaccinated people are actually mostly libertarian. Isn't the simple truth that people who trusted the Government over the jabs are now trusting them over foreign affairs? And that includes war! Whether Putin wins or loses, the West is becoming a darker, bleaker place.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to ask the same groups how they felt about school, how they feel about doctors, how they feel about traffic signs, and so on. If you saw the same pattern, with the unvaccinated also hating school, for example, that would tend to reinforce your conclusion.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, there may also be an aspect of sympathy with Putin as a bad boy who's "gone rogue," plays by his own rules, and doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. So it would be interesting to see as well how they feel about things like personal violence, bullying in school, etc. It may be that they see Putin as a stand-up guy who's being kept down by the teachers. That would sort of blend the attitudes.
I suspect the idea that the non-vaccinated are "authoritarian" misses the point. These folks like tough masculinity. Doing what doctors and teachers tell you and following international law fall into the same category of tamed liberalism, which is what they really hate.
Deep down, I suspect both liberals and the Trumpish right like social control in principle. They just like different types. Liberals like anger management group therapy and a disarmed population. Disaffected tough types like doing whatever they want and reminding annoying wimps that they should speak when spoken to.
In other news, water is wet.
ReplyDeleteAdvertisers have been exploiting this mindset for well over a generation.
Back in the 1980s, the makers of Pace Salsa had a string of commercials featuring Old West cowboys comparing the virtues of their salsa to the salsa of their competitors - and the recurring theme in every ad was for one of the cowboy to look at the back of a jar of a competing brand and exclaim in shock and horror: "This stuff's made in New York City!". To which all his compatriots would reply in thunderous and offended disbelief: "NEW YORK CITY?!?"
There are just certain things which a subset of conservatives have these bizarre, knee-jerk reactions to.
"The Big City"? Anything from a big city must be bad! (Nevermind that Pace Salsa proudly proclaimed their origins in San Antonio in their ads - apparently being the 11th largest city in the country in 1980 doesn't count if said city isn't in the Northeast or the West Coast.)
"The Government"? Anything to do with the government cannot be trusted! They just rob people with taxes, and then waste those taxes on garbage we don't need! (Nevermind that these people all want the full benefits of vital services like police, firefighters, road workers, hospitals, schools, et cetera. The government -owes- them top of the line service, but how dare they be asked to help pay for it!)
"The Media"? They're the worst! A bunch of corporate fat-cats pushing The Liberal Agenda! (Nevermind that just as many media companies are conservative as liberal; and nevermind that the largest news channel in the country is Fox News, who nevertheless bill themselves as a scrappy underdog leading a brave insurrection against the tyranny of "the mainstream".)
There has long been a subset of conservatives in this country who maintain a fierce "frontier" mentality and see themselves as brave, powerful, independent mavericks who are masters of their own fate, beholden to nothing and no one - and deriding anyone they don't recognize as being part of their in-grouping as weak, inferior, immoral, lesser, et cetera. They feel they always know best, and the actual educated experts are always wrong; that they always stand for freedom, even when they're actively fighting to strip freedom away from others; that they represent independent thought and free will, despite trying to force other people to conform; et cetera.
None of this is remotely new. This is the ongoing legacy of the Confederate South.
You can draw a straight line connecting all of these hatreds to the Civil War. Obviously they hate Washington D.C. - the very seat of the Union betrayers who started "The War of Northern Aggression", and who robbed them of their freedoms and property! Of course they hate big cities in the Northeast and West Coast - those places are full of race traitor as well as conventional ones! It's no wonder they don't trust the media - all the big-name influential media sources have been pushing nefarious "propaganda" for ages, even since the Antebellum Era!
@Man in Black
ReplyDeleteDarker and bleaker than when?
@David
ReplyDeleteI can only assume they mean the '90s? The fall of the Soviet Union prompted a lot of optimism and a sense of broad reaching peace for a while there - a decent amount of which was wishful thinking or otherwise unfounded, but eh...
Because I definitely don't see the present day as darker or bleaker than the '80s or '70s or '60s - except maybe "darker" in the sense of fashion and design being less blindingly colorful today.
G. Verloren - The "frontier mentality" is a good description. Part of that is the "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" maxim.
ReplyDeleteIn preaching - I am a Catholic priest - I use this image from time to time when I speak about the dangers of radical individualism. I encourage the folks who think this way to bend over, grab the sides of their shoes, and pull as hard as they can . . . and see just how far they go.
I see this:
ReplyDelete1. The overwhelming number of vaccinated and unvaccinated agree about Ukraine.
2. There is the usual, expected number of anti-government individuals among the unvaccinated that you would find in any group resisting, for good reasons or bad, the goverment.
3. That the vast majority of the unvaccinated are not anti-government or isolationists across the board.