There is a lot wrong with the American right these days, the level of anger and tolerance of cruelty perhaps most of all. But how many of those “tens of millions” of opponents of coronavirus vaccines and vaccine mandates are really just Biden opponents and addicts of negative partisanship? How might vaccine resistance have broken differently on political lines had Trump won a second term?

It is certainly bad news that so many Americans are so deeply besotted by partisanship that they would risk their health for their political hatreds. It’s a serious problem and indicative of both a dangerous gullibility in our electorate and a warning about the lengths to which this mass hysteria could still reach. But that’s different from the idea that these right-wing anti-vaxxers are new devotees to a cause.

Some are probably lost down Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s rathole, sure. But it seems likely that just like with the election conspiracy theories, it is a self-serving, partisan endeavor for most. We will have to watch childhood vaccination rates this year and beyond, but I bet you that most of the anti-vaccine stuff will recede along with the pandemic itself.