Posting this graph of opinions, by demographic group, about the COVID vaccines because I, too, think it's bananas. Not sure of the explanation. Presumably white Republicans aren't skeptical on account of history, the federal government's "Tuskegee experiment" and other shameful events. Note how with every group the only thing like a spike occurs just at the moment that vaccinations began so that the question was no longer theoretical. With every group but white Republicans, the spike is downward, as if people reasoned: okay, it's really happening, I have to decide, my health could be on the line, I'll do it. At the same moment, white Republicans became more determined not to be vaccinated, and their spike was in the other direction—i.e., the reality of it appears to have made them more insistently stupid. "I won't back down!"
Since the group "white Republicans" heavily overrepresents older Caucasian males, maybe the phenomenon is one and the same with the one captured by the familiar joke about men's reluctance to ask for directions—or ever to appear, in any way, perplexed, vulnerable, indecisive, unsure, "unmanly." That's all I got for theories. Before dismissing it, consider that, except for the Republican part, the theory cuts against my own interest. I enjoy it when my daughters express amazement at how I know how to get places, where to turn, etc., etc. I tell them I imagine myself hovering above the Earth with an idea of what direction I have to go and then "feeling my way." Actually, I consulted maps before we left.
If you don't exclude the Republican part, maybe the theory has broad explanatory power, like enough to account for around four-fifths of the yawning gender gap in voting patterns, not to mention the idiotic swaggering of many conservative politicians and their media fanboys.
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