David French writes:

I want to share with you two remarkably similar numbers. At first glance, they should have nothing to do with each other. On closer examination, they’re inextricably linked.

The first number is 57. That’s the percentage of Republicans who told Yahoo News/YouGov pollsters that the United States should take Ukraine’s side as it defends itself against Russian invasion (28 percent said the U.S. should back neither, and 5 percent said we should back Russia). By contrast, 76 percent of Democrats said the U.S. should back Ukraine.

The second number is 56. That’s the percentage of Republicans who told Kaiser Family Foundation researchers that they were vaccinated. For Democrats, it’s 92 percent. The partisan disparity is so profound that fully 61 percent of all unvaccinated adults are Republican.

Vaccines have nothing to do with Russia, and Russia has nothing to do with vaccines. So why are those two numbers so similar? The answer lies with a phenomenon that afflicts a substantial minority of the right, including a substantial minority of my neighbors. It’s a constant, intense contrarianism rooted in deep antipathy against perceived “elites” or against the “establishment” on the left or the right.

The overlap between various conspiracy theories is simply extraordinary. Find someone who believes Trump truly won the 2020 election, and the overlap with anti-masking activism (especially pre-vaccine) and vaccine skepticism is almost guaranteed. Find someone who believes in the basics of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and you’ll find an election conspiracist and likely a Ukraine skeptic.

Indeed, contrarianism and antipathy also present a crucial explanation for Trumpism. What’s a key reason the right likes Trump? Because the mainstream media doesn’t. [Continue reading…]