Yes I agree there was a lot of conflation of man made and lab leak, but I much more frequently saw people dismiss lab leak because of arguments focusing on man

Yes I agree there was a lot of conflation of man made and lab leak, but I much more frequently saw people dismiss lab leak because of arguments focusing on man made, than people saying they believed the man made hypothesis because it could be a lab leak. That might just be my social circle though. Similarly, I can't recall a time that lab leak wasn't considered a conservative conspiracy among my social circles, and that does include a conservative group from my hometown. In the exact same groups I do recall a rapid swapping of position on masks however. That is of course anecdote, but in general Trump has been very critical of China, and also issued travel bans relatively early on that were painted as racist by the media. Additionally, Trump and his fans childishly insisted on calling COVID the "China flu" for awhile there. So the origin of the lab leak hypothesis may not have been conservative, but from what I can tell they pretty quickly latched onto the potential for anti-China sentiment there. And not too long after that we had another situation where the Democrats decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater because they didn't like the ideas that had picked up steam with Trump supporters. But maybe you're right it's a more untargeted lack of ability for nuance. Certainly in this case that's possible, as it's a more difficult technical topic. I just see the way some of my friends hedge fairly benign statements these days, out of fear of being associated with Trumpers. I actually know someone who got rid of the couple of red baseball caps they had because they were afraid people might think it's some sort of MAGA statement. Nuance is even harder when there's a fear of saying anything that might get you out-grouped.