Alfred Dawes | Things fall apart

A favourite topic of the media is the rise of extremism. This usually refers to far right or religious extremism. Anti-immigration, overtones of racism, radical conservatism, and religious fundamentalism are often packaged together for supporters of one of these single viewpoints. However, not much is said about liberal extremism in the mainstream media. Similarly, liberal packaged belief systems are prevalent.

Support of gays must be accompanied by support of transgender rights, including extremist views of allowing children who cannot decide what school they should attend to consent to hormonal treatments to change their gender. The polarising views and packaged beliefs of conservatives and liberals threatened to tear apart the United States last summer. There are still echoes of the fiery protests even today.

The latest schism in society surrounds vaccines. Radical pro-vaxxers are commandeering the discourse to make it about vaccine mandates. If one is a supporter of vaccines as a way out of the pandemic, they are almost always forced to discuss vaccine mandates. The irony is that the anti-vaxxers who reject coercion to take vaccines are usually conservatives who normally frown on the liberals who are pro individual rights!

So now we have a society turned upside down where the my-body-my-choice, I reject-the-Government-telling-me-what-to-do-with-respect-to-vaccines clans are the same people who want the Government to tell persons who they can marry and to ban abortions. The liberals who want the freedom from government control to smoke what they want, love who they want, change into who they want, while forcing others with dissenting views to respect their choices, now want the authorities to punish those who reject government temperance of individual rights.

How did we get here? Why are liberals the ones pushing government-sponsored vaccination mandates and conservatives pushing back against state control over their personal choices?

DOWNPLAYED COVID-19

Earlier, far right leaders like Donald Trump in the US and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil downplayed the significance of the COVID-19 threat. That segued quickly into opposition to lockdowns and mask mandates. It was, however, Trump who challenged the vaccine manufacturers to produce a product within a few months. Yet his staunchest supporters are the ones who rally the most against vaccines. Ultra-liberals like Trudeau in Canada and Macron in France took extreme positions with lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and border controls.

The conservative-antivaxx connection is even more apparent when red states are compared with blue states. By far the most aggressive in the pushback against mask and vaccination mandates is Florida. Despite significant rises in cases, hospitalisation, and deaths, the state leadership has continued to oppose medical advice governing masks and other non-pharmacological interventions.

In listening to anti-vaxxers pontificate, undertones are detected. Conservatives in the US have lost ground on virtually all the issues they hold dear. The pendulum has swung towards abortion rights, gay rights, liberal immigration, welfare, and erosion of the power of the Church. To extremists, the Black Lives Matter campaign and wokeness of the next generation are death knells to their far-right agenda. To top it off,mtheir Cyrus reincarnated lost the elections. The liberals are winning. They have used the state to force the conservatives to accept virtually all their positions. The embracing of the anti-vaxxer movement by conservatives is their last stand.

Conservatives want the Government to enforce their principles on the rest of the population who want to make personal choices. Liberals, who claim they want the power over their own lives rather than having the state in their bedrooms, for example, have effectively used the government to force others with opposing beliefs to accept their personal choices with severe consequences should they not yield. The hypocrisy of the two sides waging a war of control is why we are living in upside down land.

CENTRIST VIEW

Yet in the middle of all this fighting is a centrist group. Those who are vaccine hesitant and those who believe in vaccinations but don’t agree with mandates. They believe in non-pharmacological methods such as curfews, masks, social distancing, and personal hygiene. They also believe in strong immune systems as a complement rather than an alternative to vaccines. I believe this centrist view is more common in Jamaica than we believe. The problem is that the noise from both sides drowns out their views.

The Jamaican radical pro-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers are not divided by conservative versus liberal ideology. As a country, we have never drawn those lines. The political parties that matter tend to agree on conservative and liberal issues, and they mostly agree on the necessary measures to curb the spread of the virus.

Vaccine-hesitant persons ask questions. About the safety, efficacy, and rationale for the vaccines. Anti-vaxxers make mostly false statements they hold as true as opposed to genuine concerns about the vaccines. The latter you cannot reach. They are fixed in their beliefs, and you simply cannot argue with religious or conspiracy theories. Our best hope is to embrace the vaccine hesitant and answer their questions.

If my theories are true, then vaccine mandates will only serve to drive the vaccine hesitant from the centre. The anti-vaxxers will welcome them with open arms and I told you so. Public education on risk benefits, etc, is what we need more than talk about mandates that will further erode trust. If the centre cannot hold, things fall apart.

- Dr Alfred Dawes is a general, laparoscopic, and weight-loss surgeon; fellow of the American College of Surgeons; Follow him on Twitter @dr_aldawes. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and adawes@ilapmedical.com.