The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3691 - Bernie & AOC Rally For El-Sayed; The Roots Of Vaccine Hesitancy w/ Kira Ganga Kieffer

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Welcome back to The Majority Report On today's program: Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez travel to Michigan to rally for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and House candidate Will Lawrence. Bernie and AOC both emphasized the $50M in dark money being spent on Haley Stevens' campaign. AOC asks if anyone believes that this money does not come with expectations from the donors. Bernie says this Senate race is not between Stevens and El-Sayed but El-Sayed and the billionaire class. Kira Ganga Kieffer, visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Fairfield University, joins the program for a conversation about her book, "Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America". In the Fun Half: Bhaskar Sunkara says on Interesting Times with Ross Douthat that he wants to recover the optimism the left once had about America and reclaim narratives about racism. The Tate brothers are arrested in Miami and extradited to the United Kingdom where they are wanted for rape and human trafficking charges. Donald Trump tries to shoehorn himself into Spain's world cup celebration. Trump is very nonchalant about the three (that we know of) servicemembers that were killed by Iranian drone strikes over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reports on a $50M "experiment" Israel is undertaking to change public perception of the apartheid state. all that and more. Tell your Senators to block the NDAA until it is stripped of the proposal to integrate U.S. and Israeli militaries. To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AM Quickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: DELETEME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout. BLUELAND: Get 15% off your first order by going to Blueland.com/MAJORITY. ROCKETMONEY: Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster: RocketMoney.com/MAJORITY SUNSET LAKE CBD: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com.  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.

It is Monday. July 20th, 20, 26. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar, and this is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Kira Kiefer,

visiting assistant professor of religious studies at Wesleyan University, an author of Unvaccinated Under God, Religion and Vaccine hesitancy in Modern America. Also on the program, at least three U.S. service members were killed over the weekend in Trump's criminal war on Iran after the U.S. resumed bombing Iran and its civilian infrastructure. The Pentagon has also reportedly been hiding the extent of military injuries and decrees. equipment damage.

What? They wouldn't do that. Iran finally plays their Houthi card. Yemen's Houthis declare a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, a closure of another key trade checkpoint outside of the Strait of Horm moves. Gas has once again topped $4 a gallon. In the UK, Andy Burnham officially succeeds Kirstarmer as British PNN. taking over an anemic labor government.

The FBI tells his agents via written notice that the feds are just, you know, not going to investigate violent ice encounters going forward. We don't want to. I just want to investigate themselves. The administration is also quietly shutting down multiple corporate criminal investigations with zero charges. In Maine, Troy Jackson has been selected as the replacement Democratic Senate nominee, a win for the left in the state. With four days to go until recess, Republicans are pessimistic about their agenda of Planned Parenthood cuts, voter disenfranchisement, and Iran war funds via reconciliation.

Manosphere chuds and predators Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested Saturday after British authorities filed new charges against them, rape and sex trafficking. That's so much of care. Or it's our brand proposition. Great video of that. Oh my god. Why was he wearing a caftan? Guys in the most ludicrous outfit coming to take your chains off as you have handcuffs on? And no-show socks, which big hallmark of a guy like that. Trump's Qatari donated jet is being sent out for repairs.

After his administration subpoenaed New York Times Journalists for reports, journalists for reporting on how sketchy it was. They're gonna max it out. It's not quite maxed out yet. And lastly, Israeli strikes in Gaza City on Saturday, killed at least nine, including three children, the genocide in Gaza continues. All this and more on today's majority report. Look guys, I am sorry to report that Sam is not here. And, you know, it's gonna be a little while. He's continuing,

continuing to do his Hollywood, you know, jaunt. He's filming something. We can't say exactly what it is. We promise you that he's alive and his body isn't in the trunk of Brian's car, okay? So, um, I spoke to him for 20 minutes this weekend. And what did you talk about? The war in Iran and the developments in Maine? Yeah, we talked about the Senate race, a little Senate history. Gotcha. The war in Iran, yeah, Michigan, all kinds of stuff. Then Matt talked to him for 20 minutes, then I talked to him for 20 minutes. And then he, he, was just a little bit too tired but we'll we'll take on shifts tomorrow this is true he did tell me he went parasailing and uh i don't know if i'm allowed to say that but yes okay john carey right before

a crucial election in michigan what are you doing buddy um i would like to see a photo of him parasailing i have heard this rumor and uh it seems so out of character i want to see him in the little helmet with the best probably his glasses still on. Oh, my God. In a cardigan. I can't. I can't wait to get more photographic evidence of what he's been up to.

But he will be back, we promise, in AI form or animatronic form or, you know, in spirit. Well, he would be back sooner if Kathy Hokel wouldn't have put a moratorium on data centers. It's taking his a long time and you generate AI Sam. Exactly. the left has gone too far um so uh over the weekend senator bernie sanders and representative alexandra cazio cortez you may have heard of them they headed to michigan to rally with abdul al-sayyad ahead of the august fourth primary they also rallied with a pair of congressional candidates who should be on your radar if you're a michigan voter will lawrence and donovan mckinney uh will lawrence

is running in a primary against Matt Mazdam, I believe. He's an environmental activist. Bernie Sanders has endorsed him. And then you also have Donovan McKinney, who's a state representative, and he is challenging Sri Thundahar, who is one of the most corporate Democrats in Congress. They were a part of these rallies as well. Now, as you're about to hear from both Senator Sanders and AOC, Around $50 million has been spent in outside money in this primary. The Zionist lobby in particular is attempting to make an example of Abdul al-Said for choosing to speak out against Israel's genocide, making cutting arms to Israel a central plank of his campaign,

and just generally being Muslim and wanting to be in higher office. Ugh, the Zionists don't like that. So, you know, of that 50 million or 46, million if you're looking just at this pot here, or what has been analyzed prior to the increase in spending. The APAC cutout United Democracy Project has spent at least $15 million against Al-Said on Haley Stevens' behalf. Then you also have this separate pack, a stronger Michigan, which has spent over $12 million to support Stevens. And that is a dark money pack. It's a dark many group that reporters at sludge and other outlets have connected to this guy, Jeffries Murray, who is a lobbyist.

And his past clients include Meda, Northup Grumman, the weapons manufacturer, and the American Gas Association. But pointing this out is extremely misogynistic when we're talking about Haley Stevens. You're trying to tear down another female lawmaker. Yeah, because I'm old enough to remember. as Sam will say, you know, there were times when women couldn't have a credit card in their name. And now we're trying to besmirch this woman for all the spending that she's doing, you know, for her campaign. Are you trying to say women can't spend money or people can't spend money on behalf of women? You want to control women. I'm, this is dripping in sarcasm because honestly,

these attacks against Abdul al-Sayed are so disgusting. And they're using misogyny and sexism with such cynicism that they make the real claims about misogyny and sexism a lot less salient. And it's immensely important, especially in this time of fascism, when we have, you know, the United States military essentially cheerleading testosterone injections and talking about how the warfighters need to just be masculine. And that, you know, we had we played that clip of Jesse Waters on Fox News being, like the other women in the U.S. Army should watch out for all these testosterone-filled men, as if there hasn't been a systemic problem with rape in the military going unreported.

I mean, they're celebrating it. So to use this, the Democratic Party and these PACs that are associated with a genocidal lobby, to use this so cynically is, you know, another example of liberals throwing anybody from trans people to just women in general under the us to achieve their ends of maintaining the status quo. And with all of that said, here is Bernie Sanders at that rally with Abdul al-Said, still going strong, our buddy Bernie, talking about what this election is really about. In all due respect to Healy Stevens, everybody, no, And all due respect, the Congresswoman Stevens, everyone knows that this is not an election between her and Abdul El-Said.

This is an election between Abdul and the billionaire class. That is what this election is about. A billionaire class which has already, and there are two weeks left to go in the election. has already spent $50 million against them. Now, I want everybody here throughout the state, people turning on the TVs and they see all these hands, I want you to ask yourself a simple question. Why are the richest people in the country

spending tens and tens of millions of dollars to defeat Abdul al-Sayyad? Why does the billionaire class feel that they need to outspend them in this election 12 to 1? 12 to 1? What are they afraid of? And the answer is obvious. They understand, quite correctly, that when Abdul is elected to the Senate, he will work with me and other progressives.

and taking on the greed of the billionaire class and fight for an economy and a government that works for all of us not just the one percent so there you go Bernie that is what the bill uh... Bernie on message once again uh... he sounds exactly like he did twenty years exactly uh... and you know but here's uh... the

i guess his protege or the the politician who he seems to think most equipped to take up his mantle, Alexandra Acacio-Cortez, saying something similar, pointing to the corruption in this race at this rally. That we have to choose, each and every one of us as individuals. It is something that we have to elect to do. And right now, there is a very clear choice before us. We can choose to reward the $50 million in dark money by voting their way. Which, by the way, Michigan, do you think that $50 million is for free?

Do you think that $50 million is an act of charity? We know how this works. There's $50 million in this race because they're expecting a return. It's an investment in how they make back their money is by allowing all of this stuff to continue so that you pay more and more into their pockets. That's what that $50 million is about. So we can choose that or we can choose Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for the United States. Exactly right. This is not being dumped into this race because it's an active charity or because people just like don't have enough room in their mattress for the $50 million being poured into this race. It's an investment in a corrupt political system.

Wait, you don't think the most powerful people that have all this money are doing it because they want to benefit all of us and they just know what's best? Yeah, I guess that's, that is what I'm saying, Matt, believe it or not. And people intrinsically understand. that. Now, what's also fascinating is that this is pissing off the powers that be in the Democratic party in a way that is kind of humorous, actually, because CNN had this article, and we're going to play a clip of them talking about their reporting. But the article points out how successful Sanders' endorsements have been this cycle. Just this election cycle, Sanders has endorsed more than 90 helping defeat house incumbents in New York City and Colorado. Of the 60 candidates who have had their elections already, 42 have won their races, including

10. Yep. And speaking of Steph Curry, in the fun half, we'll probably get to this Wall Street Journal reporting on Israel and its influence campaign and who they've been targeting in the United States. And Steph Curry, unfortunately, is one of them. And his office or his press people declined to comment. didn't deny it. But like Israel and and and other dark money groups are paying influencers online to astro-turf some of these campaigns. And this race has been one of the the number one areas

where they've attempted this strategy. But yeah, so of the 60 candidates who have had their elections already, 42 have won their races, including 10 out of 16 federal candidates according to his team. But in Washington, senior Democrats argue, that Sanders is forcing them to divert precious cash to primaries instead of spending to fight the GOP in November. So, you know, there's another option for you guys then. Don't spend and meddle in primaries. Let the voters decide and save all of your cash to defeat Republicans. But they're acting, he's making us do this. He's making us because these candidates are so far left that we have to spend against them and use our war chest in primaries. I thought that this was the party that was

vote blue no matter who to defeat Republicans because of the fascist threat that they represent. What happened? The Citizens United happened and now these people have sold the party to donors who don't want to support what actually needs to be supported in this country. Yep. And there's it's the donors and also in the media it is riddled with a consultant class that hates this kind of campaigning because it makes them irrelevant. It makes their fat checks that they that are written to them for all of this infrastructure.

they're middlemen that are completely unnecessary, and it's why they hate Morris Katz and fight agency and what he's been doing, because they do consulting and political organizing in a different way. But the structure of a campaign that doesn't take corporate money is a lot less lucrative to this parasitic infrastructure in the Democratic Party that has led us down this road of fascism, and yet they are represented so disproportionately in our media,

including on outlets like CNN. Here they are talking about how, how Hakeem Jeffries and Gregory Neeks in particular are upset at Bernie Sanders. Sanders has backed over 90 candidates, and according to his team, 42 of them have won their races. All right, damn it. Including 10 out of 16 federal candidates. Here's a look at some of them on your screen. There's some controversial ones that have caused some significant blowback within the Democratic ranks,

including a critical Michigan House race there, Congressman in the Michigan 7th Congressional District of Battleground district that one is William Lawrence there that's a big fight that's happening will happen in that August 4th primary Hakeem Jeffries had this phone call with Bernie Sanders and along with Gregory Meeks and New York Democrat on it meeks said told us he Sanders seemed not to care after they were raising concerns about meddling in primaries yeah yeah I mean that is Bernie Sanders I mean a lot of this as I was looking at some of the rallies there are from Bernie Sanders you're reminded of 2016, this real force that Bernie Sanders was in his race against Hillary Clinton. Okay, pause for a second. You know, first of all, why would Bernie's 84? Why would he care?

Blowback. We talk about Noah Cohen and Brendan Jay. Also, Bernie's like, I've been trying to play nice this entire time and now I've got the juice because you burn your credibility so thoroughly. That's the difference between sent 2016 and now. People were loved Bernie Sanders's message, but they were not convinced that he could. win. The Democratic establishment positioned itself as having credibility and a leg up in that area. Because they've lost to Trump twice, the voter base that despises Trump goes, I don't think I believe you. So I might go with the guy that actually is saying things that I like in terms of policy. A lot of these Democrats that we see running now sort of became Bernie Sanders Democrats during that race. And so you see this come to.

They're so concerned. In Michigan, one of I think the real. worries is that Abdul El-Said is maybe not as a competitive candidate against the Republican who did really well last go around. He used to be a fellow contributor here at CNN. That's interesting. Lost by something like 9,000 votes or something like that. And so there is real worry. But, you know, this is about attitude, right? It's about passion. It's about media training in some ways. I mean, if you think about somebody like Abdul... It's just funny what

concerns get aired. Like, I have a real concern that a insane Zionist, Christian Zionist, and the person of Haley Stevens that I'm not going to comment too much on the personality stuff, but I have concerns about that as well. And the amount of dark money

just in general she's taking will turn people off in a general election. I have concerns about that. Why don't we ever talk about those concerns? Well, they're pretending like the centrist is the better candidate in the general election. It's just not the case. I mean, the fact that she's going to be tagged with all of her Apex support and then have to go into the general election in a state that the Democrats insisted they had a leg up on in the 2024 race for very similarly arrogant reasons.

Judea and Samaria. That was about maintaining a donor network of Zionists and other big money. Uh, those, you think those problems are going to get less salient with Haley Stevens at the top of the ticket? Give me a break. Media training in something? ways. I mean, if you think about somebody like Abdul, Alsa, also a fellow CNN contributor at some point, you, years ago. Before he ran for governor and lost in the governor. Yeah. And so there is a sort of energy and polish, I think, that some of these candidates are bringing, that the more sort of centrist candidates aren't really bringing it. Okay. All right. Well, this is just like, why can't you guys talk about the policy? Why can't you talk about the policy resonating? This Troy Jackson

thing in Maine will be a real test because he is going to have a very similar platform to Graham Platner and but you know maybe less of the charisma and less of a name recognition at this point because Plattener had been running for over a year but if he's able to pull this off with just that platform

I don't want to hear anything about this anymore that will be so dispositive it'll be ridiculous. Troy just won because of his overwhelming charisma yeah right in Troy's defense I would say he has what I call Northern Maine charisma. Yes.

Let's do a think piece on it for the New York magazine. Is he a part of the toxic Bernie Bro left when you talk about charisma? The only charisma that counts is if you sound like Marge Simpson and you're having some sort of like manic episode about Israel. That's the charisma that they care about. Just to round this out, because I mentioned that we're going to be talking about the proliferation of bot campaigns and influence campaigns on the internet. This was over the weekend, all over Twitter, and it wasn't just this instance of accounts that are more centrist that are, we're saying something extremely similar about Haley Stevens.

You got Tim Miller here. Okay, yeah. She's growing on me and I can't help it. a lot of these accounts just said the same exact thing. I have to admit it. Haley Stevens is growing on me. Like an infection? I like how they have to admit that... It started from a low place.

Yes. Don't kill me, but she's growing on me. Guys, Haley Stevens is growing on me. That's what you say about like a weird sort of new food. Right, right, right. I've tasted it three times like I'm supposed to. Marmite, yeah. I gotta be honest, she's grown on me.

And it wasn't the only... instance where there have been like a lot there's been like a lot of identical phrasing that has been tweeted out or sent out on social media oh this is the way it's always great when Zionists think they have a point right or this noun verb A pack put yep that's the new one noun verb A pack that's what they're sending out to these influencers I think look again noun verb APEC big time loser also noun verb I wonder how they all came up with this. Noun, verb,

A-PAC. God. They are cooking over there in support Israel. Yeah, like, like, we're, as I keep referencing this big Wall Street Journal piece, but it, it, they talk about how, if you guys remember Brad

Parscal, he was the senior digital advisor for the Trump campaign in 2020, and prior to that in 2016, he was the guy that oversaw the Cambridge Analytica strategy, which essentially was this firm. It was revealed that this firm improperly took personal data from tens of millions of Facebook users to build psychological profiles to target them for right-wing causes. And this happened in the 2016 election and in

Brexit in the UK. And Pascal was across that. He was brought back in the Trump campaign in 2020 and then had to kind of leave in disgrace because he had a total psycho episode, or I shouldn't say psycho. He had an episode of domestic violence allegedly with weapons and his wife called the police on him. And now apparently he's been contracted by the Israeli government to run an influence campaign here in the United States. And I'm not saying that someone like Tim Miller's getting paid by a corporation to tweet that out.

But we get press blast from other campaigns. as well where they'll say these are the talking points. What email list are you on? Right. What email? But do I think that maybe smaller, like what we saw from Taylor Lorenza's chorus reporting, these smaller influencers, perhaps they're getting paid and then they're on the email blast list and then they send out social media posts that are in keeping with these talking points? It's just something to keep in mind because I think we're really in a period of unbridled corruption in so many parts of what used to be, you know, institutions

that were more defensible. And this so-called free speech space on the internet is now pay to play, much like a lot of our information ecosystem right now. And so something to watch as we cover this key Senate race in Michigan. That is grandma. That is. Grandma, baby. That's Brad Parscal.

This is Parscale is so grandma. in a moment we are going to be speaking to uh to to to kira keifer who wrote the book unvaccinated under god religion and vaccine hesitancy in modern america but first a word from some of our sponsors have you ever thought i really should be doing something to protect myself from scammers from stalkers from hackers but you're not sure what to do well i've got the answer for you go to www.deleteme.com slash majority and enter code majority. You'll get 20% off. Delete me removes your personal information that is being sold online. Before I even started at the majority report, I had heard about Delete Me. I was at a different company and I was starting and putting my face

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quick break and when we come back we'll be joined by kira keifer we are back and we are joined now by kira ganga keifer visiting assistant professor of religious studies at wesleyan university and author of unvaccinated under god religion and vaccine hesitancy in modern america kira welcome to the show hi thanks for having me of course um so happy to have you happy to dive into your book here um because i love how you look at vaccine hesitancy particularly in the U.S., from a really different angle than we traditionally cover it, I think, and a lot of people traditionally cover it. Your contention is that the narrative that vaccine hesitant people are merely ignorant of, you know,

just science and scientific facts is missing a huge part of the story. What is the part of the story that's missing there? Yes. So thanks so much for bringing that up. So the missing part of the story is that people have had contentions or fears or concerns or anxieties. I kind of use all those different words about vaccines since they were invented at the end of the 19th century.

And so that has always been the case. And so when we look back historically and then also now, we can see that they're not always about the same exact issues. but yet we see a lot of kind of higher meaning questions, not questions about do the vaccines work or don't they work or is the science there to support the efficacy of X vaccine or Y vaccine, but rather like is it a morally good thing for me to vaccinate my child if there is some level of risk to do so?

And what kind of like risk management am I, is any individual running. And so when I think about risk, I think about morality, I see religion everywhere. And so religion not necessarily in the institutional or doctrinal sense, but more in a subtler religion, as I call it, that works into people's calculuses when they think about vaccinations, especially for their children, but also themselves.

So viewing it as a form of religious expression is interesting because we've talked about, at least on this show, about how Trump kind of takes on the contours of an evangelical, you know, sort of televangelist, and a lot of his support is in that base. And you have prosperity gospel, but you just, you have the skeleton of very identifiable and familiar religious expression in the United States

that appears to also be able to be mapped onto a lot of vaccine hesitancy. Would that be fair to say? I think it's maybe a fair assessment now and in the past couple of years, and I would include COVID through today, but not necessarily earlier. And so when we think about how I like to think about religion is not only in that like evangelical or Christian sense, but if we broaden it, then we'll see that starting in the 1980s, which is when my book begins its history of modern vaccine hesitancy, we do see a lot of things. the kind of evangelical narratives or tropes about what like what's right and wrong and protecting

children, protecting the family, and also the use of conversion narratives that people use when they are becoming evangelical Christians. And they say like, I was I was lost and now I'm found. Like Jesus has saved me. I understand the world better. So we saw that happening in the 1980s with the DPT vaccine, diphtheria pertussis tetanus. When There was a kind of an expose documentary that came out in 82. And it was alleging that there were, you know, more than more injuries from that vaccine than there should have been, so to speak. And a lot of parents came forward and said, oh, this seems to reflect my story.

My child has been sick, has been injured. And now I understand better because the doctors hadn't told me that that could have been the reason. That could have been the cause. whether it was the cause or wasn't, it sort of doesn't matter, is what I'm kind of, is my argument here is because they were making sense and meaning out of inexplainable events. And so we see that idea of like evangelical tropes there, but not necessarily like a Christian, like an ostensibly Christian.

And it wasn't like ostensibly Christian at the time. And then as we move forward into the 90s and 2000. if you remember like the MMR autism theory and like Jenny McCarthy and talking a lot about the MMR measles mumps rebella vaccine, which we're hearing a lot about these days as well. There was not overt religion there. There's a lot of discussion of like bodily purity. And that purity was about protecting from the sickness that could be, you know, transferred through the vaccine.

not like of what the vaccine could be protecting against, but rather like this fear that the vaccine itself could be toxic or have chemicals in it that could make the body dirty or impure and then therefore ill. So there's like on, there's this ongoing like fear that vaccines do more than they say they're going to do, so to speak. And I think that's where meaning making is so important

and where religion plays into our, you know, kind of history of vaccine hesitancy. And to get to your point now with Trump and him, you know, acting as a, you know, religious type figure, yes, he does represent a lot of evangelical Christians, and that is his base. And in the more recent history in the 2010s, we saw evangelical Christians becoming more engaged on vaccine hesitancy as a medical freedom issue because of very clear ties to threats to religious freedom laws, so to speak, with the idea of removing religious exemptions from vaccines, which means that there hadn't been a truly religious or like Christian reason to oppose vaccination. But then suddenly when there is more vaccine

hesitancy, fewer people are getting vaccinated in the 2010s, 2015, 16, right around Trump's, you know, coming into power, evangelical Christians see that there is, you know, a cause that they can get on board with, and it kind of brings them into the tent of vaccine hesitancy. Well, how would you then characterize, and you write about Gardasil and the HPV vaccine, which, you know, I remember,

because that was around the time when I was supposed to be getting it, when that was being rolled out. And I remember the, you know, more conservative parents in my school being against it. And there being, you know, this idea that it was promoting promiscuity. And that was my first real association with vaccine hesitancy and the religious right. So my question for you would be why not start that, or would you start the, you know, merging of kind of evangelical resistance to vaccine hesitancy then?

or why say it's more, why did it escalate more with Trump later on in your view? Yes, so you're correct in saying that when Gardasil came out and hit the market in 2006, there was a conservative evangelical and Catholic kind of like outpouring against that vaccine in particular because it's against certain strains of HPV, which is sexually transmitted in. infection. And the way that the vaccine was marketed was as a cancer vaccine, as a way of trying to make it so that young girls wouldn't eventually develop like cervical cancer. They didn't talk about it being sexually transmitted in the way of the disease. And so Christians got a hold of that and they became very incensed. As you point out,

out and we're against having that vaccine be mandated for all children. But I use that as sort of as a very interesting case study because we see that like very overt religious involvement, but they weren't really concerned about the vaccine itself as much as the behavior that they thought it would, that it could potentially greenlight for young girls. And so I would say that that was more of a function of. of like, sex, like purity culture and, and like concerns about sexual mores,

than it was about the vaccines. And so like that uproar died down pretty quickly. It was effective because lots of states did not mandate it and it still isn't mandated for most children or young adults, but it was a short-lived moment, I would say. It really becomes part of the of evangelical Christian conservative MAGA identity around that late 2010s moment that I was talking about before because there had been all of these measles outbreaks starting in like the 2010s like I was mentioning.

And that caused honestly liberal states to consider revoking religious exemptions to mandatory vaccines, saying, we don't think those states like California, New York, we're saying we don't think that it could possibly be that people who don't want a vaccine are doing it for religiously sincere reasons, we'll just revoke that entirely. That clause is outdated. We don't need it. That will ensure that people have to get vaccinated. And even though most evangelical Christians had been going along and been vaccinated and had

not seen this as a religious problem, prior when they heard that idea of the religious exemption being taken away, it put up, I think, antennas for lots of leaders in that party and in that group. And they said, oh, that's a religious freedom issue. We already fight on behalf of religious freedom as evangelical Christians. That's one of the big ways that we are heard in American culture, and that is a way of kind of pushing back on liberalization. And we see that vaccine hesitant people have a longstanding cause that is separate from ours, and now they're kind of pushing into like medical freedom and religious liberty as well.

So they see a coalition, I think, or at least like the makings of one. And then surely it pans out and becomes a, it becomes a coalition. It becomes part of, you know, conservative Christian identity by the time that COVID hits, right around COVID hitting. I don't think that that would have happened. I don't think that, you know, a third of Americans would have said no to a COVID vaccine 10 years earlier. I think that all of those things had to have happened prior to set that up. And how much of that would you also say is a failure of public health in general in this country

and churches and kind of, you know, religiosity, which we should also separate from some of the wellness religiosity that is similar in character and I want to get to it but doesn't have a formal say evangelical structure like how much of this is filling gaps because our public health system is so anemic so poor compared to other industrialized countries that that that that that that this this kind of almost like religious freedom cowboy mentality is able to take root well as Lots of things going on there. I think that I really do find areas to critique for sure, you said, anemic, in terms of the public health system. Because I think that people in public health had seen vaccine hesitancy, which I was talking about, you know, earlier in the interview just a few minutes ago, as having started much earlier than the 2010s. But when it gets to the 2010s, they address it as, you know, a failure of facts, so to speak, and that they need to just like address vaccine hesitancy with more facts and also, you know,

changing the laws. And those things really, those two methods really actually triggered vaccine hesitancy or anti-vaccinationism amongst a lot more Americans than otherwise, would have because it seemed to be derogatory to say that lots of people didn't understand the science and therefore if they just would listen and go to school, they would know that vaccines were good and also was kind of threatening or at least posed to be taking away the right to get an exemption or just the right to say no to the government on some, on something. And without realizing it, I think public health made vaccine hesitancy much, much worse is what I would say.

That's how I feel about it. That's how I read it historically. Of course, we don't know how things would have been had vaccine hesitancy been understood differently in the prior decades. But we do know that amongst, say, African American populations who also have higher levels of vaccine hesitancy than white populations based off of, you know, different factors, medical racism. That when public health and doctors talk to them and make partnerships with African American communities and say, like, we see you, we see the damage that we've done in the past, we want to try and rectify that, we want to gain your trust, we see that being effective,

not necessarily in taking down all the hesitancy, but in bringing up. uptake, certainly during the COVID vaccine or the COVID, you know, pandemic. Whereas with, like, white evangelicals, I think they just, they were seeing this, the COVID shot as an opportunity to oppose, you know, a government in a system that they didn't like. Right. I mean, I guess that the question is then for me is, how is that ground made more fertile? And, you know, the fact that this hesitancy is fairly, I would say, American in character in the way that you describe it, would, I would say, I would, my hypothesis would be, you know, what is the structural issue here that would, that creates this, the, this circumstance. And the United States is unique in

many ways, but in terms of health care, we don't guarantee health care as a right. And so when it, does that not increase? skepticism? I couldn't speak to that. I don't know if it would, if that increases skepticism, but I hear what you're saying, and I think you're absolutely right, that there is this, you know, we have a very strong American individualistic culture that is, you know, lots of people and kind of like ingrained into our cultures to be oppositional or to be suspicious of, of the government and of anything that seems like socialized medicine or, you know, guaranteed health care. But even the deprivation, even the deprivation of itself might also, you know, increase skepticism and make people feel like these other institutions are more likely to I trust them more than a public health system, for example.

Absolutely. Yes. Oh, yeah. No, I think it's absolutely the case that there's a at least a very strong sense of distrust of doctors and of doctors. the medical establishment that's been growing, especially with, and it doesn't make, it doesn't necessarily tie specifically to evangelicalism, but this is the group who has kind of taken it on now and also concerns with big pharma and seeing that, feeling like, you know, the medical establishment, so to speak, isn't taking care of them. And we could see like lots of, we could go back and think about many different, you know, policies that could have been different and changed where we are now, but we have what we have now. And yet there is still, with all of this quote independence, there is still a lot of skepticism towards, you know, doctors and public

health and wondering, like, if they have people's, like, best interests at heart. And I think that gets at people from a cultural, from like a kind of a cultural perspective and also a religious perspective, also thinking like, hey, I actually put more stock into folks that are, you know, more openly like me or church leaders that are more openly like me that are, you know, Christians that talk about God. You know, there's all different ways of framing like, why are we healthy and why are we not healthy and who should we trust when it comes to taking care of ourselves. Your book mentions, you know, also talks a bit about how, specifically on the, in the 90s and early 2000s on, you know,

the measles, the MMR vaccine, how middle class women were kind of brought into the vaccine hesitancy fold, or just women in general mothers during that period. Can you talk about that dynamic? I mean, I think you mentioned Jenny McCarthy, but it occurs to me that when you know you mentioned the tuskegee experiment and black men being you know uh uh experimented on and and and then being killed uh and medical racism and some of these other groups that are more vaccine skeptical perhaps mothers are being not necessarily talked about enough given medical sexism and misogyny and what women have to experience with the medical system that might cause them to be more skeptical of vaccines for their children because so oftentimes women are not listened to about their pain and don't have doctors treating it seriously. It might create that opening. Yes, absolutely. And I think that is a

crucial part of this, of this history and of this story because women and mothers are the primary, people who are dealing with vaccines because most children, most vaccines are for children. Mothers make those decisions, right, for the most part, certainly historically. And so in the 1990s and early 2000s, we see like this confluence of factors that I think are getting at exactly what you are saying. And it's this increasing pressure on especially white middle class women and moms who are feeling it the most, I think, in that moment where they are now in the workforce thinking about, you know, like kind of after the secondly feminine, they're back in, they're in the workforce,

they're trying to have it all. They're being moms. They're working. They are, you know, have a tremendous amount to shoulder. And then they hear about this possibility that a vaccine could maybe give their child developmental delays or some sort of neurological disorders. And, you know, this is a reputable study published in a reputable journal at the time in the Lancet in 1998. And then it gets picked up all over. And it puts into these women's puts on their plate this big moral dilemma, which is like, who do I trust now? And what is the thing I need to do to take care of my child? And at the same time as dealing with like kind of the after effects of second wave feminism,

which brought out a lot of that medical sexism that you're talking about and how misogyny is very much baked into, you know, the history of biomedicine in this country and in all of our, you know, public institutions. they were also being kind of hit with intensive mothering as the paradigm where it was like, you need to take care of every single aspect of your child because your child is who represents you. Your child is like a near sacred being. We need to be absolutely certain that there is no impurities going into your child because this is what's most important. And so if that's the ideal in mothering, is intensive mothering.

and you're learning about, you know, these possible side effects of a vaccine. And you know that the history kind of is against you as a woman in the medical system. And, you know, you have the, you know, high likelihood at the time of feeling like maybe you wouldn't be listened to. And you hear lots of other mothers saying, you know, I went to my doctor about my children's, my child's pediatrician, about their reaction, what I think was a reaction to a vaccine. and they just said, oh, no, you're wrong. And that story is repurposed over and over and over again. And it's extremely, you know, it hits hard. It hits deep for moms who are like feeling like they are held to the highest of standards

in terms of like having this like spiritually and physically like perfect child that they are in charge of. So I definitely think that, and then I see that intensive mothering as very much being an effect of anti-feminism of the 80s. So of trying to get women to focus more on the home and less on work. So I think that sexism is a huge focus of this, of my book, certainly, and of the vaccine hesitancy history. We have to look at like who is hesitant and why and what are those systemic issues. that are at play. Well, really a fascinating angle, a much more compassionate angle than we sometimes get on vaccine hesitancy, but it's key because everything is systemic. And, you know, if we're trying to promulgate public health, I'm sorry, my camera, it appears to maybe have

frozen guys, if we could just find that, or we might be back. We're going to have to understand people and meet them where they are. So really appreciate your time today. Kira Ganga Kiefer, visiting assistant professor of religious studies at Wesleyan University, author of Unvaccinated Under God, Religion and Vaccine hesitancy in Modern America. We'll put a link to that down below in the video and episode descriptions and at majority.fm. Thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. Of course. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part of this program,

head into the fun half in just a second. Just wanted to mention this. Matt's coming back soon, but it has been six years since the great Michael Brooks has passed away. We're thinking of him today. We're thinking of his family. We think of him often every day. It's been six years, which I can't believe.

But rest in power, Michael. Love you, buddy. And, yeah. Can't believe it. Six years. We'll make fun of some Zionists maybe in the fun half in Michael's honor. They'll see like a wrestle up a Sebastian Gorka clip. Yes, exactly right. Matt, what's happening in the Matt Luckian media universe?

Yeah, we had a sort of, I mean, a show of many different moods yesterday for our Sunday show, listeners, where we did some fun stories and also ended on Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio and all these people getting eaten Ray McCarthyite, which I think we can look forward to over the next few years. And tomorrow we'll have a show probably talking about some of this Jasmine Crockett stuff and other stuff over on Left Reckoning. So, yeah, that's coming up tomorrow. Join the Majority Report.com. If you can, become a member, support this program.

Join the Majority Report.com. We've lost a lot of members over this Will Lawrence blowback. So if you can please join. That's the crazy. They faced a lot of blowback. And I thought they're going to talk about Platner. Oh. Wait, what?

You didn't hit in the CNN clip. They were talking about how the blowback. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Lawrence. Right, right. See, you couldn't even, that's how little blowback. I know. You didn't even know what we were joking about.

Well, David Dayan had an interesting write-up about, I guess, you know, that he was targeted as in this, like, really cynical way as anti-black. And apparently the, like, community in Michigan was like, we're not buying this. And he still got the backing of some of the leaders that. As the CBC condemns Will Lawrence, Lauren, local black leaders back him up. So, I mean, that's the sort of inside baseball thing we're talking about here. Whereas, like, I mean, I think fairly typical of the CBC. but also like nobody heard about this besides people that read you know the prospect exactly but you can check out if you want to hear about this controversy you can check out

the blowback yeah the American prospect I like how we use a word like blowback as we're like basically on the cusp of a wide war that's going to cut off shipping through the middle of the world like that's genuine blowback yes the spat between the black establishment and local black leaders over a white politician running, like, I don't know, man. I think maybe we got some bigger fish to fry. I think so too. All right, guys, we will head into the fun half now. We'll probably take some calls today. See you there. Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking in the majority report. Wait, look, Samma's unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World. So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday.

I think you need to take over for Sam. Yes, boy. Sir, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. So it's offered a twerk. Sushi and poker with the boys.

Sushi and poker. I just think that what you did to Tim Poole was mean. Free speech. That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about it because I think your response. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the melting. down here.

Twirp. Ugh. Sushi and pork. I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. So it's offered a twir? Yeah. Sushi and just don't understand.

So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like, I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing meat with a wife and kids. That's not what we're talking about. It's not a fun job. Twerk. That's a bit. Willie Walker. That's a real thing.

That's that real fit. That's offered it. That's a twerk. That's a twerk. That offered a twerk. Sam has like the weight of the world. I'm going to say pogger. It's so much easier.

When the majority report was just you. You were happy. Let's change the subject. Right. Now, shut up. Don't want people saying reckless things on your program. That's one of the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro-killing podcast.

I'm thinking. Left is best. Trump. Violet twerk. Incredible theme song. I Bumbler. Emma Viglin. Absolutely one of my favorite people.

Actually, not just in the game. Like, period.