Mask Wearing Is No Political Theater

Kevin Drum

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Over at National Review, David Harsanyi points out that the federal government probably doesn’t have the authority to force everyone in the country to wear masks. Fair enough. But then he goes further:

Mask wearing has become just another stupid front in our partisan war. The fact is that whenever Donald Trump fails to engage the federal government in ways that Democrats demand, they claim he is negligent; and whenever he uses the federal government in ways they oppose, they rediscover the Tenth Amendment and accuse him of being a dictator. Trump could no more declare a no-mask mandate than Biden could force the entire country to wear masks. It’s all just political theater.

No, no, no. Maybe Trump can’t mandate mask wearing, but this is the farthest thing in the world from political theater. It might be the most important thing in the country right now, and Trump’s bully pulpit is, by far, the most effective way of promoting it. He’s the one who made this into a culture war issue, and he’s the one who can stop it. If Trump declared that masks were important, Fox News would follow along, talk radio would follow along, and red-state governors would start putting in place mask mandates at the local level. On a personal level, the people who are refusing to wear masks are precisely the people who would be most swayed by hearing from Trump himself that mask wearing is important.

If Trump did this, thousands of lives would be saved. That’s no political theater.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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