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Pre-Covid, it was theorised that conservatives were more germophobic than liberals. People used to claim "Trump is a germaphobe". Theories even abounded that to conservatives, immigrants were perceived by conservatives as viruses - a threat to their survival.
Further - germaphobia was thought to correlate with authoritarianism
However in the current pandemic, the picture is far more murky. Yes, eastern Asian countries with largely conformist societies (and some authoritarianism - e.g. China) have handled the crisis much better than more liberal countries (exceptions include New Zealand)...
But the right has actually reacted in the opposite way to the "conservatives are germaphobes" theory. Conservatives have been anti-mask, they've claimed the virus is fake, that there is no real risk, that "it's just the flu".
The "conservatives are germaphobes" theory stems from research that conservatives have stronger disgust responses than liberals. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcauliffe-germs-parasites-and-politics-20160727-snap-story.html
where higher disgust reactions results in more xenophobia
The root cause of this disgust is thought to result from a fear of being unsafe (especially in conservatives):
But again - a pandemic should make conservatives feel Less safe, and more in favour of any actions to increase safety. Yet we see the opposite: they are anti-lockdown.
(of course the "Plandemic" anti-maskers aren't necessarily conservative - at protests we can see a cross-section of representatives of society )
But broadly, in the UK and the US (and in Brazil for example) we see a conservative/liberal split in the political arena anyway. My only theory is that libertarianism is overriding disgust/safety, or that business interests are overriding disgust/safety as drivers.
If anyone else has any ideas why conservatives are ditching their traditional germaphobia and fears of safety, I'd be very interested.
As a child, a friend of mine went to Raab's house once. He said his mum was cleaning everything with bleach, wearing rubber gloves.
