Masks are tyranny!

     "I think wearing a mask is a personal choice and I don't particularly want my government telling me that I have to wear a mask. I think that's a choice I can make."

          Ron Johnson, M.D., former White House physician, now candidate for Congress, on Fox News.

There is populist sentiment against wearing masks. They are unnecessary. They are tyranny.

"Jesus gives us a choice."

Anti-mask protesters

Anti-mask protesters showed up in Provo, Utah urging the county not to make school children wear masks at school.

"The mandate for children to wear masks is baloney," one protester said at a meeting of the County Commission to hear from residents about the proposal to open schools with the requirement that students wear masks. The meeting was promptly adjourned on a two-to-one vote, on grounds of safety, because the room was densely packed with protesters, shown here, none wearing masks themselves. 

"I don't like government mandates," said the one commissioner who had invited the protest meeting, and who then voted against adjournment. He got cheers.

A counter protester had a sign, "Wearing a mask is an act of compassion."  He was jeered by the crowd. "It's an act of submission."  "Jesus gives us a choice." "Mandates are against freedom."

Mask resistance is not new. Back in 1918 there were protests against wearing masks. A San Francisco mayor said "conscience, patriotism, and self protection demand immediate and rigid compliance." An Anti-Mask League formed in opposition, calling masks tyranny.

In Georgia today several cities have attempted to put into place a requirement that people wear masks in public spaces, including their own public buildings. The governor, Republican Brian Kemp signed executive orders specifically prohibiting cities from requiring masks. Kemp has said that the use of face coverings are "strongly encouraged" but not required. He has taken the cities to court, in what Kemp calls a pro-business decision.  Besides, he has said, requiring masks is "unenforceable." 

Too many people simply won't do it.

President Trump signaled early on that mask-wearing was a matter of freedom, not patriotism. Masks represented submission to over-reaching so-called experts, not self-reliance or public safety or the country's welfare. President Trump communicated early on that the virus was no big deal and that the cure was worse than the disease. For a while Fox News echoed that, then, briefly Fox switched along with Trump, to supporting social distancing and masks, and now, Trump and Fox have moved on to talking about freedom and the real threat to the health and safety of citizens: law and order in the cities. 

This evolving message fits a populist and partisan mindset. Masks are Democratic. Masks are for kill-joys. Masks are for nagging Dr. Fauci. Mask-free is for people who refuse to submit to tyranny. Mask-free is for people who want to go back to work and make America great. Masks became a political statement. Trump belittled Biden for wearing one. Trump, under pressure, agreed briefly to wear one while visiting a hospital. Now it is back off. 

The 2020 re-election of Trump may rest on this decision by Trump. He planted his flag. A majority of voters--at this moment at least--think Trump handled the poorly. Other countries handled it better. It is spreading here in swing states Florida and Arizona.

Readers of this blog who wear a mask in public willingly, as an act of public safety, law abidance, and self protection, may under-estimate the resistance to mask-wearing as a matter of pride and principle against government over-reach. There is, within populist Republican circles an attitude toward masks that parallels their attitude toward gun registration. The government can't make me. Within populist anti-government social media circles conspiracy rumors circulate that justify resistance.  

Ralph Bowman lives in a retirement community in deep red Josephine County, Oregon, an area with the demography and politics similar to West Virginia: rural, poor, white, Trump-ish, populist, anti-government. He talks with his neighbors, and sent me this comment, summarizing some of what he hears from them.

Ralph Bowman: "Lies my neighbors tell me": 

"Peter, they tell me: 

Ralph Bowman, Facebook photo

Hospitals are making a lot of money off this virus so when someone dies of a heart attack the doctors write "Covid" to get the dough.

The Covid thing is all about the election. If there was no election coming up this Covid stuff would be gone.

I already had it back in December. Just like the flu but stronger. All my family had it.
I don’t need a mask.

There have been 19 of these Covids. What’s the big deal. We know how to give shots. It’s the flu.

The supposed number of deaths are a joke. They make them up to scare everybody. It’s a damn lie. Do you know anyone with it?  No. So get over it.

Only one death here in Josephine County. Yeah, with underlying conditions. There are more deaths in the flu season. That guy would have died anyway.

Really, it’s a hoax and a rip off of tax payer money. Hell, my daughter makes more money being  on unemployment. Which is good, I guess. Who wants to go back to minimum wage? She’s staying home with her kid. That  food place where she works can’t find workers."