Wear a Mask, Dammit

Insofar as this thing is a teachable moment, let's teach.

I know this is obvious, but the lesson of Donald Trump’s infection is not that it’s a result of him refusing to wear a mask. It’s a result of him insisting that everyone around him not wear a mask.

This is the problem the nation faces with Trump’s politicization of  masks: your personal safety doesn’t depend very much on wearing a mask.  What matters is whether everyone else is wearing a mask—“herd mentality,”  you might call it. In Trump country, where lots of people spurn the  whole idea of masks, you’re going to be unsafe regardless of what  precautions you take. In the case of Trump gatherings, where everyone  gleefully goes unmasked in order to own the libs and provide the optics  Trump wants, you’re unsafe even if you buck the trend and wear a mask  yourself. Ditto for the floor of the Senate. Or the House.

At Trump events, it’s considered de rigueur to go maskless. Don’t want to upset Donald, after all. So naturally everyone was maskless at Trump’s announcement event for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. The result so  far? Sen. Mike Lee is now positive for coronavirus, and he hugged everybody there. Notre Dame president  Fr. John Jenkins is positive for coronavirus. RNC chair Ronna McDaniel  wasn’t there, but she’s around the president and his staff all the time.  Now they all have COVID-19 and more are sure to follow.

People don't seem to get that the mask doesn't protect you from other people. It protects other people from you, and so it only works if we ALL wear the damn things. With our damn noses covered. And not our chins. And don't take it down when you sneeze or cough.

I'd like to think that Trump's base will now think "Hey, maybe this shit is real," but it won't. Within a week it will shake out as a new conspiracy theory where the nefarious Joe Biden infected the Greatest President Ever.

With a virus that doesn't exist.

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