north73-year-old Ancy Allen wears a face mask in the chicken coop on her farm, but not when she goes to church. “There have been a lot of changes in what we should and should not do,” explains Donald Trump supporter from Shelby, North Carolina. “I don’t think you should tell me that I should wear a mask, and I don’t think the president should, unless he feels he needs it.”
Neera Tanden, 49, became infected with the coronavirus in May, suffered from muscle pain and fatigue and slept long hours. Her Twitter name is now “Neera -Wear a Mask -Tanden”. The president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, says of Trump: “Her position to politicize the wearing of masks is brutal and ensures that more people get sick and more people die.
“The idea that we have a president whose policies, attitudes and declarations could end up killing people instead of saving their lives is frankly crazy. It is beyond comprehension how reprehensible it is. “
Only in the United States, or perhaps only in a country where Trump is President, the use of face masks, an effective measure to stop the spread of the virus, can become a political declaration, the last battleground in the seemingly endless wars. cultural activities of the country. .
The commander-in-chief has been caught on camera with a mask once, in May behind the scenes on a factory visit, but refuses to wear one in public and has criticized his electoral opponent, Joe Biden, and journalists. “politically correct” by doing it.
When the president held the Make America Great Again (Maga) campaign events in Oklahoma and Arizona last month, the face covers were few and far between. At Black Lives Matter, protests across the country, by contrast, were ubiquitous.
Using or not using has been fought in bars, cafes and supermarkets. Online videos show unmasked customers pulling items out of their cars after being told to leave.
A Starbucks barista in San Diego who was publicly embarrassed by a customer after asking him to wear a mask received more than $ 100,000 in virtual advice after a Facebook post that attacked him went viral.
But the fight was never more evident than at a meeting of Palm Beach County commissioners in Florida. Speaker after speaker criticized the mandatory masks, drawing comparisons to Nazi Germany and promoting conspiracy theories linking the virus to Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, 5G mobile networks, and pedophiles. One declared: “This is not Cuba, we are not in a communist nation.” Another said, “I don’t wear a mask for the same reason I don’t wear underwear: things have to breathe.”
Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist, told the Washington Post: “The wearing of masks has become a totem, a secular religious symbol. Christians wear crosses, Muslims wear a hijab, and members of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Data Gods by wearing a mask as a symbol, proving they are the elite; smarter, more rational and morally superior to everyone else. “
But the division is no longer broken along the usual partisan lines. An ABC News-Ipsos poll last week found that 89% of adults who left home the previous week said they were wearing a mask, a jump from 55% in early April. And as the virus now devastates Republican states, called Reds, Trump’s allies in the Republican party have bowed down to reality.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who a month ago banned local governments from fining non-masks in public, made a change Thursday by requiring all Texans to cover their faces in public in counties with 20 or more positive cases of coronavirus. .
Vice President Mike Pence, who two months ago despised himself by avoiding a mask while touring the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, is now on board and sporting one. Mitch McConnell, Trump’s top enforcer in the Senate, brandished a mask bearing the Washington Nationals baseball brand (as did federal public health expert Anthony Fauci, who has been urging wearing a mask) and stated: ” We should have no stigma, none, about wearing masks when we leave our houses and approach other people. “
Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming tweeted a photo of her father, the former vice president, wearing a disposable mask and a cowboy hat along with the message, “Dick Cheney says WEAR A #REALMENWEARMASKS MASK.”
And Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate committee on health, education, work and pensions, sincerely expressed: “Unfortunately, this simple practice of saving lives has become part of a political debate that says: if you are for Trump, do not use a mask; if you’re against Trump, you do it.
“That is why I have suggested that the president occasionally wear a mask even though there are not many occasions when it is necessary for him to do so. The President has millions of fans. They would follow suit. It would help end this political debate. There’s a lot at stake for it to continue. “
There were signs on Wednesday that even Trump had received the message. “I am in favor of masks. I think the masks are good, ”he told the Fox Business channel. “People have seen me wearing one. If I was in a difficult situation with people, I would absolutely do it. “
Recalling a rare occasion when he wore a mask, Trump searched for a characteristically dated cultural reference: “He looked like the Lone Ranger. I have no problem with that, and if people feel good about it, they should. “
In two public appearances at the White House on Thursday, however, the President remained unmasked. The allies point out that he is regularly tested for the coronavirus, as are his assistants. His press secretary called him “the most proven man in America.” But his aversion to covering his face remains an enigma.
Tanden, a leading Clinton advocate in 2016 against Trump, speculated: “I think maybe they thought it was a virus that only hit blue.” [Democrat leaning] She claims they didn’t really care, or it’s machismo, or maybe her makeup will go away if she wears a mask.
“I don’t know what the real answer is why he doesn’t wear a mask, but the effect is that he is sending his voters to the disease. The peaks are now in Arizona and Texas and Florida and California, and much of California is due to Arizona. “
Frenchman Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Justin Trudeau are among the world leaders who have set the example by wearing masks in public. Tanden added: “All of Europe’s leaders wear masks. In Asia, they wear masks. It’s just him and [Brazilian president Jair] Bolsonaro is anti-science and anti-knowledge. The problem with a pandemic is to refute the science and to refute the evidence and to refute the facts means that people die. ”
A recent survey of 2,459 people in the United States found that men are less likely to wear face masks because they believe it is “embarrassing,” “a sign of weakness,” and “not great.” Critics accuse Trump of a toxic masculinity that has masks are for the weak. He changed his coronation as a Republican presidential candidate next month to Jacksonville, Florida, so that a large and bustling gathering can take place, after the original location, North Carolina, declined to promise that the patterns of social distancing would be relaxed. But Jacksonville this week announced a mask requirement for indoor public spaces.
At least 14 states have mask mandates, says the National Association of Governors. And a Goldman Sachs report found that a national mask mandate could increase the number of users by 15 percentage points, protecting the economy from a 5% reduction in GDP. Biden has said he would pursue a federal mask mandate if elected to win the White House in November. “Wear a mask,” the Democratic candidate tweeted Thursday, with a video of him doing exactly that.
But underlying the resistance are enduring American notions of civil liberties and freedom from government interference, typified by Trump’s unconditional support for the second constitutional amendment protecting the right to bear arms. There are also echoes of the anti-vaccination movement.
Some observers have compared the required culture change to car seat belts, which ultimately required enforcement. Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt tweeted: “When seat belts were first introduced in 1968, there were idiots who insisted that they ‘infringed on their freedoms’ and physically removed them from their cars. We make fun of those people now. Can you guess who we will make fun of in 2072?
Fireworks on July 4, celebrating America’s independence from the British Empire, will be the next major test.
Bill Whalen, a member of the Hoover Institution think tank at Stanford University, reflected: “I am not sure if we are going to be at the point where people are going to throw masks in the harbor like tea boxes, but we will see.
“The right wing really has a problem with the mask, but on the other hand, you would think that an enterprising person like Donald Trump would present a Maga mask.”
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