What's wrong with the brain of anti-vaxxers?

WTF!!?

Basketball is not my favorite sport, but I've watched it enough over the years to know the name John Stockton. He was a standout player with the Utah Jazz in the 80s and 90s. He holds the NBA record for most assists. Experts say he and forward Karl Malone formed the greatest pick and roll combination of all time. The two men played more than 1400 games together and reached the NBA finals twice, losing both times two Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. He is no lightweight but an all-time NBA great.

So why did he make a ridiculous statement like 100-150 professional athletes have died after receiving the Covid 19 vaccine?

"I think it's highly recorded now, there's 150 I believe now, it's over 100 professional athletes dead — professional athletes — the prime of their life, dropping dead that are vaccinated, right on the pitch, right on the field, right on the court," Stockton said.

To borrow Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's reaction to Stockton statements, that batshit crazy. There's no evidence anywhere, in any country, in any sport, on any playing field of an athlete dropping dead because of a Covid vaccination. What the hell is Stockton talking about, and where did he get such loopy misinformation?

Then you have Robert Kennedy Jr. Okay, he hates vaccinations. He has a long history of opposing vaccinations based on terrible science, inspired by the corrupt research of one man in particular — Andrew Wakefield. (If you want to see the ultimate takedown of Wakefield's shoddy career, you should watch this YouTube video from HBomberGuy. Don't be thrown off by his nom de plume if you don't know who he is. It's a brilliant video.)

But on the national mall the other day, Kennedy compared getting a vaccination to Anne Frank's hiding in the attic of a Dutch home from the Nazis. Never mind that he got the details wrong about Frank — anti-vaxxers tend to do stuff like that. The point was that he made the comparison at all. He's not the only one who's done this. What compels a human being to draw a line between receiving a vaccination against a virus that can kill you and the actions of the evilest force in human history and its attempted destruction of the Jewish people?

I think a little more batshit crazy is going on here

This brings me to the point of this article. What has happened to the brains of people who believe these conspiracy theories?

I'm not talking about Trumpistas when I ponder this question. The Trumpistas won’t get vaccinated for political reasons. It's part of their political identity. It's still evil, but I guess I understand. Although when you look at the death toll of Republicans as compared to Democrats because of Covid, it's a losing strategy. (A losing strategy illustrated by Kurt Andersen's excellent article in the Atlantic.)

No, I mean the ordinary folks who believe this nonsense. It's happened before in human history. When the Roundheads tried to undermine Charles I, they used horrible misinformation about his wife, a Catholic, that most Brits chose to believe even though the charges were outrageous. Samuel Adams, who played a key role in the initial stages of the American Revolution, used misinformation about British atrocities to inflame colonialist passions against them. In our day, we have Alex Jones charging that the murder of 20 innocent children in Sandy Hook, Connecticut was a red flag operation by the government so they could take people's guns away. While it looks like Jones will have to pay the piper for his outrageous lies, the reality is that many people believed him.

So again, I ask, what's the matter with people's brains? Many people say this willingness to believe conspiracy theories is rooted in fear, fear of minorities becoming the majority in America, or men's fear of women becoming too powerful. Well, I'm a 65-year-old white man. I don't have a lot of money, I drive a 17-year-old car, and I know there have been times I haven't gotten a job because the places where I applied wanted to hire a woman. And I'm okay with that, and I understand why it happened. I don't fear minorities taking over America. Part of me welcomes the idea. My wife is a Rhodes scholar who makes a lot more money than I do and is a lot smarter than I am. Big deal. I'm not afraid of that either.

So why do I not see all these dangers? And why do these people who believe these conspiracy theories swallow them whole? Why are they so afraid, and why does that fear make them want to risk their lives rather than get a simple vaccination?

(The one thing I have never understood about Americans is their notion of liberty. Many would rather die than receive a simple vaccination. And any of them will. So is that their life's goal? The result of all their years on this planet, leaving loved ones behind and plunging their families into grief, is to own the Libs? Even for a Trumpista, it seems rather selfish, shallow, and pathetic.)

So I'd be curious to hear what people think. What is wrong with the brains of conspiracy theorists? Why are they so broken? Why's it so easy for intelligent people — because even the "low information voter" is far more intelligent than their ancestors — to allow themselves to be used in this way?

I hope there's an answer. Finding it may be the key to saving our democracy.

But don't hold your breath.