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I'd think they believe they're actually saving lives, there's no way they're being so cynical

When you have the public busy dealing with an avoidable crisis, you have less people focused and criticizing on all the real bullshit the rest of the administration is doing.

Disagreeing with the orthodoxy is a good way to draw a lot of attention to yourself, which has benefits both social and financial. And, if you exist in a fact-free culture like the US has, there’s no immediate harm to yourself even if your counter-orthodoxy is both wrong and dangerous. I don’t think it is much more complicated than that.

You have to understand what caused the anti-vax movement to flourish during Trump 1. Conservatives believe that they should enforce rules but those rules do not apply to them.

"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

So when local governments and companies began requiring employees to get vaccinated, they complained. Conspiracy theories about the vaccine exploded and a populace that didn't fact check or "did their own research" became angry that a "powerful government" was telling them what to do.

Remember that the government is a stick to these people, a stick wielded against your enemies.

The motivation behind this is simple: get rid of the requirements and the infrastructure to force people to do something.

This is an absolute win for conservatives. They don't care that they'll get hurt. They don't care that their cancer treatments won't get approved because they won't need it. They've got ivermectin! And bleach! And they'll add measles parties for good measure.

So long as the government doesn't force THEM to do something, they are happy.

Every conservative politician was vaccinated. That's really all that needs to be said. So yeah, I actually think the point might just be to have fewer Americans. Maybe they think fewer equals easier to control?