I think the inquisition against the ignorant is also in it to satisfy their egos, so we have two groups that are playing this game.

We have public health care and you always get at least a vaccine against tetanus if you even hit your small toe and go to the doc. Slightly exaggerated but not by much. Nobody questioned it. And it wasn't esoteric moms on youtube that let people be skeptical, it was the pressure to enforce vaccination that did. I have no data, but these are the usual behavior patterns you can currently observe in almost all political debates.

Enforcing vaccinations is mostly a populist policy.