Denialism

climate denialism; vaccine denialism; Holocaust denialism

At this point Rudd confronts a new denialism. Just as John Howard was wrong to deny the confessional value of the apology, many Laborites are wrong to deny the abject failures of past generation policies.

Denialism is an expansion, an intensification, of denial. At root, denial and denialism are simply a subset of the many ways humans have developed to use language to deceive others and themselves. Denial can be as simple as refusing to accept that someone else is speaking truthfully.

In other words, the pattern of resistance to the coronavirus vaccines looks less like COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and more like COVID-19 denialism.