| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Why are some Republican politicians suddenly turning against the coronavirus vaccines — and in at least one case, seemingly turning against vaccination in general? It seems to makes no sense; it's their own constituents who will suffer if their vaccination rates stay low. Indeed, that's exactly what's happening now, with more Republican states having the lowest vaccination rates and experiencing new surges of Covid-19. How can that work out for them? Some think it's a simple effort to ruin the nation while a Democrat is in the White House. I'm skeptical of that answer. Not because I have great confidence in the ethics of any set of politicians, but because for the most part, the anti-vaccination folks are the same people who turned against public safety measures before the vaccines — and before Joe Biden was president. So I have four answers. The first is simple: Republican-aligned media features many anti-vaccine hosts, and Republican politicians want to appear on Fox News and other Republican-aligned TV and radio outlets. The second is also simple: Biden says vaccinations are good, so some Republicans are going to say the opposite. The third answer? Read what Adam Serwer has to say in his new book, "The Cruelty is the Point". My fourth answer is a bit more complicated. It has to do with internal Republican dynamics — with the True Conservative game. It works like this. A fringe group of the party seeks to differentiate itself from the mainstream. To do that, its members set out to prove that they are the True Conservatives and everyone else is a wishy-washy Republican in Name Only at best, and a collaborating liberal at worst. However, by now the mainstream of the party has become so conservative that there are no easy moves to make that involve pushing one or another policy preference. Notice that the Democrats are different on this score, even though their mainstream has become quite liberal. There are still plenty of policy moves available to Bernie Sanders in the Senate or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the House of Representatives to differentiate them from the rest of their caucuses. Not only does there appear to be less room for fringe Republicans to find ground, but the truth is that few of them are willing to put in the work to find real policy differences. There's another problem for the fringe, which is that mainstream conservative Republican politicians are paranoid about failing litmus tests, getting portrayed as moderates or worse, and then getting defeated in primary elections. Again, for a variety of reasons, it's different on the Democratic side, where quite a few mainstream liberals are happy to have someone out there making them look moderate. What is available to those wishing to differentiate themselves from mainstream conservatives are nonsense and nihilism. Come up with something crazy enough, or destructive (including self-destructive) enough, and maybe the bulk of the party won't follow them, allowing them to "win" the True Conservative game. This has been going on for some time, with partisan polarization turning the party more and more conservative, and removing first the liberal Republicans and then the moderates and eventually anyone but the very conservative, forcing the fringers to find more and more dubious ways to prove that they and only they are True. The key point here is that there is no counter move available to the rest of the party. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can say that they oppose such-and-such a policy because they are liberals, not socialists. There's no parallel move for the Republican congressional leaders, Kevin McCarthy in the House or Mitch McConnell in the Senate. That doesn't mean that mainstream conservatives always go along, but within the norms of the party they're not allowed to call anyone too conservative, let alone any more negative characterization. I can't prove that this extremely dysfunctional dynamic is what makes anti-vaccine comments so common among Republicans right now, and it probably isn't the entire story. But it fits with what's happening. It fits with opposition to vaccines, and to masks and other public health measures. It fits with cutting off expanded unemployment insurance in Republican states, where governors were afraid to challenge True Conservatives who urged it. It fits with worship of Donald Trump. 1. Julia Azari on presidents and their parties. 2. Lee Drutman and Shana Gadarian talk about Republicans and the vaccine. 3. Allison Stashko at the Monkey Cage on district attorneys and police violence. 4. Very helpful Greg Sargent item about Biden's voting rights speech and why it probably doesn't matter that he didn't talk about the filibuster. 5. Ashley Kirzinger, Grace Sparks, and Mollyann Brodie with important new survey data on the vaccine. 6. Chris Cioffi on new institutional support for congressional staff. 7. And Jamelle Bouie on the new "lost cause" myth being built about Jan. 6. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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