Live free and die: Inside the bizarre political philosophy of America’s unvaccinated

Indeed, as the issue of getting a COVID-19 shot gets increasingly politicized, Huntsinger noted, refusal begins to be wrapped in the strong power of what experts call “negative partisanship” — voters forming opinions largely in opposition to the political party that they don’t like … or hate. Ever since the coronavirus arrived on American shores in early 2020, it’s been people that conservatives tend to dislike — scientists, journalists and, into the Biden era, Democratic politicians — advocating stricter lockdowns, masks, and now vaccines, and that clearly causes some of them to get their backs up. Huntsinger said that when elite public officials issue stay-at-home orders, “people who score high on liberty are like, ‘(Bleep) you, I’m not doing that.’”