Yesterday I was texting with a friend whom I’ve known for many years. Funny, affable, and intelligent, I have always appreciated and enjoyed her company. During the conversation I randomly happened to ask her if she had any travel plans coming up; she said no, while simultaneously, obliquely hinting she had not been vaccinated after noting she couldn’t travel on commercial airlines. I was completely taken aback. When I pressed her as to why, she curtly stated it was an ‘emergency’ vaccine that she apparently felt was too dangerous and/or unproven. It became clear I had crossed a red line for her, and the conversation abruptly ended.
Fringe pseudo-news sources such as Fox News, and the Fox News wannabes like OAN, have always angered me. They peddle the absolute worst kind of journalism, via the worst possible frontmen and women, and their effect on the political atmosphere in the U.S. is unconscionable. And yet a not-insignificant number of my family, and a few of my friends, have been partially or wholly taken in by their conspiracy theories and endless partisan fear-mongering. With family there is not much one can do, but with friends it is utterly baffling to experience, and more than that it’s incredibly sad, as it carves out an area of the relationship that is out of bounds and that has to be navigated around. It feels like something has been lost, or that a barrier has been erected.
And for what?
Not because we’ve taken reasoned but opposite positions on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan or the proper role of welfare programs for low income Americans, but because of a patently absurd, unfounded conspiracy theory about the way in which the COVID vaccine was created, tested, and distributed. And to have that belief at the very moment when the country’s healthcare system is reeling from exploding hospital/ICU admissions rates, caused by those very people who bought into the conspiracy theories.