Views on how to respond to the coronavirus pandemic have become increasingly polarized, yet another political issue that for many culture war combatants is filtered through an ideological lens. The left has been almost uniformly — and loudly — in favor of sacrificing many personal liberties in exchange for containing the virus’ spread. The right has been divided, but the vocal activist wing of conservatism that has enormous influence on social media and Fox News, has been far more willing to attack the various infringements on where people can go and what they have to wear.
The mask has become the ultimate symbol of this new cultural and political divide.
For progressives, masks have become a sign that you take the pandemic seriously and are willing to make a personal sacrifice to save lives. Prominent people who don’t wear them are shamed and dragged on Twitter by lefty accounts. On the right, where the mask is often seen as the symbol of a purported overreaction to the coronavirus, mask promotion is a target of ridicule, a sign that in a deeply polarized America almost anything can be politicized and turned into a token of tribal affiliation.
The cleavage was made clear this week when Mike Pence toured the Mayo Clinic without wearing a mask. Pictures from the event showed the maskless vice president surrounded by doctors and patients with face coverings. The story dominated cable news. Liberal hosts shamed Pence for setting a bad example or behaving recklessly. Conservatives attacked the left’s mask obsession as another example of the creeping nanny state.
Laura Ingraham warned that “social control over large populations is achieved through fear and intimidation and suppression of free thought” and “conditioning the public through propaganda is also key, new dogmas replace good old common sense.”
But the pro-mask voices won, at least for now. On Thursday, Pence toured a ventilator factory in Indiana while wearing a surgical mask.
In Washington, mask-wearing has become deeply political and inconsistent. The White House is divided along some familiar lines. In early April, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first issued its recommendation that Americans wear “cloth face coverings” — because surgical masks are still in short supply — Trump immediately blurted out that he wasn’t interested.
“With the masks, it is going to be a voluntary thing,” Trump said at a White House briefing on April 3. “You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I am choosing not to do it. It may be good. It is only a recommendation, voluntary.”
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“It’s a personal choice. That’s the whole point of the guidelines in the first place. If you want to wear one, you can wear one,” said one White House official. “It’s not a conscious effort to try and raise the alarm or not raise the alarm.”
The virtue signaling seems to have spilled over to Capitol Hill. During a vote on the latest coronavirus relief package last week, POLITICO reported that about a dozen Republicans declined to wear masks on the House floor. One of the maskless lawmakers, Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, said he wasn’t making an ideological statement and that members were “spaced out” on the floor, precluding the need for covering his face.
When asked whether it was a cultural or ideological statement, another maskless Republican, Ralph Abraham, a veterinarian turned family doctor from Louisiana, gave an emphatic “Nooo, nooo!”
Not all of the maskless behavior on the right seems ideological. Some members just seem to be struggling to adapt to new rules like everyone else. A POLITICO reporter spotted one masked Democratic member who actually removed his mask when he encountered a colleague, and they posed for a picture together.
But there is clearly a growing partisan split. Democratic leaders in the House have made more of a point about wearing masks on camera than Republican leaders. Democrat Jim Clyburn donned one at a news conference on Thursday with Nancy Pelosi, who generally uses her scarf as a mask. None of the top three House GOP leaders wore masks at an outdoor news conference at the Capitol last week.
The mask divide is spilling into policymaking. Congressional Democrats, backed by flight attendant unions, have been leading a campaign to force the use of masks on airplanes, which the Trump administration has resisted. (In the absence of a mandate, Delta, American, United, JetBlue and Frontier have all recently adopted a mask policy for passengers.)
Some people seem as worked up about face coverings as others are about tax policy or abortion. In response to a recent POLITICO report about the Pence imbroglio, one person on Twitter wrote, “Get over it, I don’t wear a mask either and I NEVER WILL!”
Wearing a mask is not “virtue signaling.” It’s trying not to kill someone in case you have the virus and don’t know it. Stopping a pandemic requires people to make some sacrifices. This is the very least anyone can do. It’s not a big deal, it’s not hard, anyone can do it. I honestly can’t believe it’s even controversial.
But once again it exposes something fetid and decayed at the heart of American conservatism. They literally don’t care if people die.
But what else is new? These are the same people who had an epic temper tantrum when the government tried to ensure that everyone could buy affordable health insurance. It’s just who they are. And it’s why I can’t find it in myself to be empathetic because they feel so marginalized. it’s no excuse for being a nihilistic death cultist.