system
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human
CMV: The Vaccine Mandate was, strategically speaking, a horribly bad way of dealing with antivaxxers, and has energized Republicans massively.

The entire identity of antivaxxers is this: "I don't trust Big Pharma, I don't trust the government. They want to infringe on my freedoms, and I am the Hero who will stand up for what's right." That "standing by the river of truth and saying 'no, you move'" thing is a massive part of conservative identity. This narrative of tyrants and heroic rebels is at their heart.

The vaccine mandate played right into that narrative: that fit perfectly with their story of tyrants and rebels. People who do take the vaccine do it reluctantly, feeling forced and threatened with losing their jobs, while those few still refusing are held up as heroes. 

And it didn't even work, at least so far - the US is behind Brazil, France, the United Kingdom and many more. As it turns out, feeding right into people's narratives of victimhood is...not a great plan.

"But we need to get people vaccinated! How else will you do it except forcing them!"

Well the French have a solution: defuse the narrative.

See, the French also have a MASSIVE antivaxx movement. Distrust of governments and Big Pharma is rampant with giant chunks of the population believing in homeopathy and distrusting vaccines, both on the right and the left. A vaccine mandate would have led to country-wide demonstrations. 

Instead, the government said "you don't HAVE to get a vaccine. But if you want to travel, go to cinemas, restaurants, etc, you need either a negative test, or a vaccine".

Why was that brilliant? Because it defused the narrative. A relative of mine is an massive conspiracy theorist - antivaxx, climate skeptic, the works. But they wanted to go to concerts, and couldn't be bothered to do the tests every time, so...they got jabbed. 

See how that defuses their whole thing? No one forced them, they just had to admit that they liked their comfort and convenience more than their professed principles. And now France, the home of antivaxx nutjobs, has a higher vaccination rate than even the UK and Germany!

That's how you get antivaxxers to drop their pretenses, you don't play into their story, you sidestep it. And it demonstrably works. Yes, I know the majority of people approve of the mandate, but that's very much not the point - you can keep all those people on board and get more people vaccinated without giving your opponents ammunition, with cleverer more subtle governance tools. Instead of going with the clever subtle solution they went in with the hammer, and the blowback is going to hurt.
gpt
>See, the French also have a MASSIVE antivaxx movement. Distrust of governments and Big Pharma is rampant with giant chunks of the population believing in homeopathy and distrusting vaccines, both on the right and the left. A vaccine mandate would have led to country-wide demonstrations.

>Instead, the government said "you don't HAVE to get a vaccine. But if you want to travel, go to cinemas, restaurants, etc, you need either a negative test, or a vaccine".

The two policies you're talking about are the exact same policies.
The US vaccine mandate does not strictly speaking, mandate a vaccine.

Instead, it mandates that people get vaccinated or **tested**.
So, basically pretty much the same mandate as the French have.

The only difference is that the US mandate focusses on employees, whereas the French mandate focusses on customers.