While they once described themselves as Republicans or Democrats, these voters now identify as independents who plan to vote based solely on vaccine policies. Read more ⤵️
They waved signs that read “Defeat the mandates” and “No vaccines.” They chanted “Protect our kids” and “Our kids, our choice.”
Longnecker and her fellow objectors are part of a potentially destabilizing new movement: parents who joined the anti-vaccine and anti-mask cause during the pandemic, narrowing their political beliefs to a single-minded obsession over those issues. Their thinking hardened even as COVID-19 restrictions and mandates were eased and lifted, cementing in some cases into a skepticism of all vaccines.
In interviews, 27 parents who called themselves anti-vaccine and anti-mask voters described strikingly similar paths to their new views. They said they had experienced alarm about their children during pandemic quarantines. They pushed to reopen schools and craved normalcy. They became angry, blaming lawmakers for the disruption to their children’s lives.
The extent of activity is evident on Facebook. Since 2020, more than 200 Facebook groups aimed at reopening schools or opposing closings have been created in states including Texas, Florida and Ohio, with more than 300,000 members, according to a review by the New York Times. Another 100 anti-mask Facebook groups dedicated to ending masking in schools have also sprung up in states including New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, some with tens of thousands of members.
Nathan Leamer, who worked at the Federal Communications Commission during the Trump administration and is now vice president of public affairs at the firm Targeted Victory, said Republican candidates — some of whom have publicly been against COVID vaccine mandates — were better positioned to attract these voters. He pointed to last year’s surprise win in Virginia of Gov.
“We were seeing real trauma happening because programs for children were shut down,” said Levy, a stay-at-home mother in Miami. Murakhver joined some Facebook groups and became particularly active in one called “Keep NYC Schools Open,” which petitioned the city to open schools and keep them open through COVID surges. Last year, she became a group administrator, helping to admit new members and moderating discussions. The group swelled to 2,500 members.
In Chico, Kim Snyder, 36, who has a 7-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son, said she was a longtime Republican. After her children had to stay home in the pandemic, she helped create a Facebook group in 2020 for Chico parents committed to reopening schools full-time. The focus of her Facebook group soon morphed from reopening schools to standing against masks in schools. By late last year, more content decrying every vaccine had also started appearing in the Facebook group.
Yet in a September 2021 post in Snyder’s Facebook group, parents pointed to VAERS figures that they said showed thousands of vaccine-induced deaths.
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