Despite their love of Carlson, my interviewees had somehow heard accurate information about vaccines. They weren’t worried about being magnetized or microchipped or otherwise maimed by the federal government. Certain elements of their lives worked in favor of vaccination: Everyone I spoke with said their family members were also vaccinated, and they all read or watch other news in addition to Carlson’s show.

Most of the vaccinated Tucker viewers see the show primarily as a form of entertainment. They like that Carlson veers offbeat, like the time he claimed the National Security Agency spied on him, and that he sticks it to the libs a little. They find other media commentators condescending. Where liberals see an angry, deluded racist, conservatives see a politically incorrect Jon Stewart. These Carlson fans don’t look to him as a source of genuine vaccine information, but as a funny id who stirs things up. “A lot of modern American conservative thought tends to be a little bit contrarian,” said Carter Sibley, a 46-year-old Californian who got vaccinated in April, “and folks who are inclined to question the mainstream line.”

But one factor seemed to have played the biggest role in my interviewees’ decision to get vaccinated: a genuine fear of COVID-19. My interviewees said they got vaccinated because they knew themselves to be at risk, wanted to protect others, or simply had no problem with vaccines. “I grew up in a generation where, when the vaccination comes out, you get it,” said Tom Busyn, a 54-year-old in Minnesota. The fact that the vaccine is not yet fully FDA approved did not give him pause. “I knew that I was basically a guinea pig, and it didn’t bother me.”