There's a whole class of issues that drive partisans into making complete fools of themselves. It tends to occur when there are legitimate ideological questions regarding what to do about a given problem. But, instead of debating the ideological questions - because, sadly, most people aren't smart enough to do that, partisans instead focus on denying or exaggerating the "facts" of the issue.More unfounded fear mongering from the anti-vax crowd
With covid, for example, rather than discuss how much authority government should have regarding shutdowns and the like, the partisans simply focus on propaganda regarding the underlying problem: the right denying that it IS a problem, and the left countering by blowing it out of proportion. The same thing is going on in the global warming debate. Rather than discuss the government's role in dealing with pollution, the two sides just bicker about whether pollution is a problem or not.
Now we're doing it with vaccines. Instead of discussing whether government should have the power to force people to get vaccines, we have stupid arguments (with both sides being largely ignorant regarding the science) over the vaccines themselves. Republicans insisting that it's a plot to depopulate the planet, and Democrats claiming the vaccines will save us from all pain and suffering.