So, the other day my mother in law calls my husband and says "so I was talking to my chiropractor about how our friends got covid and he told me not to worry, if we start feeling sick he's got the hook up, apparently people have been getting this stuff at Farm & Fleet? But he's got it figured out for human doses".
My husband, properly mortified, said "please Mom, don't take ivermectin" and proceeded to go down the list of why it doesn't work, what the dangerous side effects are etc.
Today my mother in law called back up to "reassure" Ian that she was perfectly safe because her chiropractor had figured out the doses and was "really smart".
Some backstory: My in laws are the only people I've ever met or heard of who were EXCITED to vote for Ted Cruz ("he's a good Christian man donchaknow!"), who think the sun rises and sets out of Sean Hannity's ass, and who hated Trump not because of his horrific policies but because he was crass.
So, fairly typical conservatives. They both voted for Trump reluctantly, both insisted that "yeah well ok his tweets are mean but imagine what would have happened if Hillary got elected!"
They're "pro-life", pro gun (despite never owning one while my communist ass owns half a dozen), anti gay (despite having a trans son who's in a gay marriage with my enby ass), worship the rich, hate welfare, hate food stamps, etc etc etc
And they're not vaccinated, and probably never will be. And all the things I said above are WHY they never will be but not for the reasons some of y'all might think.
Here's the thing about my in laws and millions of conservatives just like them. Deep, deep down, past all the bluster and whatsboutism, below all the both sides rhetoric, under all the deflections and false reasoning, there is a human psyche under immense strain from having to constantly reconcile diametrically opposed things with whiplash speed.
"Free speech is paramount (but ban all books with critical race theory)"
"Vaccine? My body my choice! (pregnancy? You don't get a choice my God said so!)"
"Blue Lives Matter! (The government thugs are tyrants!)"
That's just 3 easy ones off the top of my head.
See, conservatism isn't based on ANYTHING at this point other than reactionary hatred and a concentrated bile towards anyone who isn't allocishet and white. But to make that work folks like my in laws labor under a massive load of cognitive dissonance to believe things that contradict each other depending on what the moment demands.
Black people protesting peacefully for justice in policing?
GUN THOSE NO GOOD THUGS DOWN THEY'RE BURNING DOWN THE CITIES!
A bunch of cracked out Sov-cits take over a wildlife refuge, cattle ranch, whatever and one gets shot for drawing a gun and trying to shoot a cop?
Gubmint tyranny! Tree of liberty watered with blood!
(Feel free to include a hopped up conspiracy nut crawling through a broken window to try and lynch Nancy Pelosi)
My point is, it's very difficult to keep spinning all of these plates. They have to live in a bubble where the right is always right and the left is always wrong, because if a single card flutters out from the tower the whole thing collapses
I promised I'd get to why they won't take the vaccine and why I can't convince them.
See, in the early days of the pandemic Trump said it was fake, so that means they must pretend it was fake (even if deep down they know it isn't).
THEN Trump said Hudroxyclorquine was the answer, so it had to be the answer.
THEN he said bleach
THEN he said UV Light (go look up UV sanitizing light sales, I'll wait)
THEN Biden got elected.
THEN the vaccine became available but since Biden was in it couldn't be spun as a victory for the right so it must be bad/fake/wrong.
To admit any of those things are bullshit is to admit that the rest of their worldview might be bullshit and the whole house of cards will collapse.
It's called Ego Death or Psychic Death.
Right wingers like my in laws are so wrapped up in their whole world being "GOP good libs bad, GOP right libs wrong" that admitting the maybe just ONCE "libs right" will collapse their entire world. And they CANNOT deal with that.
So.
They will keep chasing snake oil cure after snake oil cure because risking an agonizing death that threatens everyone around you is, to them, LESS damaging and painful than the destruction of their world view that would result from admitting that maybe just once the "libturds" were right about something.