>>This both-sides-ism is one of the things that got the US to this place, the idea in the media that we should treat all ideas equally and that if we have someone talk about, say, the benefits of vaccines, we must balance that by then giving air to a vaccine denialist.

What's a vaccine denialist?

What you call both-sides-ism is sometimes also known as "science" which is driven by persistent skepticism. The idea of scientific consensus or that only one viewpoint is valid, has been anathema to science ever since everybody knew the world was flat. Such widely believed mistruths can only be overcome by contrarians. If the contrarians are fearful that they might be burned for heresy or subject to the online billy club in today's world, then you have a big problem.

Certainly contrarians are easy to dislike because their skepticism is annoying and distracting. But science has to make a special effort to engage because that's the best way to discover error and grow knowledge. There's a silver lining too: a hypothesis that keeps seeing off challengers becomes stronger and stronger and is useful. A hypothesis that does not survive challenge is not useful. A hypothesis that needs to be protected from challenge is a cult.

If somebody says that too many citizens don't believe the truth- such as the value of a COVID vaccine- then I say that's on the complainant. You cannot change others, you can only change your interaction with them. Which clearly is a fail if they don't believe you, So people need to sort out their message and maybe ask why so many seem to prefer others' opinions. Or I suppose you can just demonize them and say it's all their fault, but that doesn't make people more likely to listen afaics. It may even be the reason why they won't.

Just for completeness, Trump administration officials and most Republicans in Congress backed mandatory MMR vaccination and still do. Meanwhile in NZ, most MMR anti-vaxxers are far left (even by our standards!) so perhaps the hypothesis blaming conservative mindset would benefit from a dose of skepticism,? ;-)

For the rest: I can see you believe these things deeply but you don't need to convince me and you don't need me playing contrarian. I would say though that HE'S GONE and your good guys control House, Senate and POTUS. The so-called Autocrats are deposed. So go out and do good things.