“Things that come from the national level down generally engender a bit of pushback. . . .[We have] a reluctant populace that doesn't like to be told what to do."
Dr. Anthony Fauci
He was explaining why he was reluctant to call for a national mask mandate.
Masks are a partisan symbol of Democratic tyranny. President Biden must change the meaning of masks. It won't be easy, but I suggest an approach.
Anthony Fauci adds to the stories that are emerging in the national press about people who deny that COVID is real, or that the deaths we are seeing are coming from COVID. A South Dakota nurse got national attention with her frustration over seeing people suffocating, on oxygen, and then sometimes intubated, all while insisting that it simply must be something other than COVID because the virus was a hoax. Fauci said "in certain areas of the country, even though the devastation of the outbreak is clear, some people are still saying it’s fake news."
I get angry comments sent to me questioning the COVID death count. Surely I am blaming COVID for deaths that were from other things, they write. Trump carries that message. The COVID numbers are exaggerated, he says, because doctors make more money when they use COVID as cause of death.
If COVID is a hoax--or at least a huge exaggeration and overkill--then efforts to suppress its spread aren't really about health and safety. They are symbols of tyranny. Democratic Party tyranny. That, too, is Trump's message.
Trump made COVID partisan, and that is the reality Biden will face as president. Trump's policy at the beginning was to hope this COVID thing was not going to interrupt the strong economy in the 2020 election year. America was on the "right track." Trump has a consistent message. Keep the economy up and running, which means downplay the virus. If COVID is not a big problem it is pointless to hurt schoolchildren, damage the economy, and inconvenience ourselves with a visible symbol that COVID is real in the form of empty restaurants, cancelled events, closed churches, and masks on faces.
Here in Medford, Republican county commissioners oppose enforcement of masks, even as the case count is accelerating here. The local news is of Christian schools where masks aren't required and impersonal learning is allowed while public schools are forced to use distance learning. Nationally, a state with a dramatic increase in cases and hospitalizations, South Dakota, has a Republican governor on TV this morning saying she opposes a mask mandate for her state. "The facts are simple: mask mandates, harsh lockdowns, massive testing and contact tracing haven't worked -- in the United states or abroad." She is applauded by Republican officeholders.
This isn't surprising. Masks are new and a nuisance. Social distancing, especially at Thanksgiving, is another irritation. Democrats are trying to sell the value of something that a great many Americans think just isn't that big a deal. Meanwhile, the virus is spreading. Biden has a transition team working on what to do and say about masks, shutdown, "pauses," and mandates after he is sworn in.
Here is what will not work: Joe Biden says we should do it for America.
That message of patriotism might have worked, Churchill style, had Trump employed it eight months ago, but he didn't. He went the other way, saying COVID was an overdone hoax and that people should rebel against Democratic governors who try to take away your liberty. That message is here, locked in, and further reinforced by the campaign, election, and Trump's subsequent behavior. Biden is defined as illegitimate, a thief, a socialist, a tyrant out to destroy your religion, your economy, your liberty to decide whether to wear an uncomfortable and useless mask. Republican voters have heard that message, and more or less agree. Trump ruined it for Biden.
What might work to change the image of masks and social distancing rules? Manliness. Sell mask wearing and shutdowns the way car companies sell heavy duty pickup trucks, where deep-voiced men talk about horsepower and getting tough jobs done. Ads like this: Click: Capable Truck
 |
| Click Here: Lead or be Led |
There are links to two ads here, 30 seconds each. I urge readers to click. Observe them. Pick up the vibe. The real message is the sensibility, the tone. These vehicles are for good, strong, can-do men.
This recommendation on how to present masks may strike some readers as phony or improbable. A Democrat can't run an ad like that. This seems too, well, Montana-ish. It seems too Republican. That is my point.
Masks don't have that masculine-tough-outdoorsy vibe, nor do Democrats.
Masks represent civilization and politeness. Democrats are the Party that appeals to women more than men, to office workers, not people who operate backhoes and do construction and drive trucks. The fact that these two ads seem "Republican" in tone tells us what has caused Democrats to lose 5-to-1 in some rural counties, and to have an almost 2-to-1 disadvantage among White working class men, and a 3-2 gender gap generally. Democrats lose elections because they lose the vote of men. That is a matter of political life and death for Democrats. A matter of literal life and death is the public attitude toward efforts to stop the virus.
There is a reason Trump focuses on criticizing female Democratic governors like Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer. Trump has keen instincts into marketing messages. He is reinforcing the notion of mask-wearing as feminine tyranny, of the sort that readers may remember Huck Finn rebelled against, the civilizing effects of Aunt Sally. He would rather run away than be stifled by her.
There is another, possible message. Tough guys wear masks around other people so they can keep working. Tough guys wear masks because there are jobs to get done. Tough guys don't get pushed around by squirrelly little piss-ants who screw up jobs by being careless.
Who can carry that message? Marines. Navy Seals. A bouncer at a bar who tells some jerk that if he wants to enter, he wears the mask and keeps it on. They aren't wearing masks because some governor said they must, even if she has done just that. They are wearing it because they want to. Because real men can do hard things.
Won't women be put off by an image of strong masculinity promoting mask-wearing? No. Quite the opposite, I think. Women seem to like strong, masculine guys, when they seem to care about loving and protecting the people around them.
10 comments:
It's true that Huck Finn rebelled against wearing his Sunday finest, speaking properly, or cleaning his fingernails per Aunt Sally's school-marmish desires. Bot on a much deeper and fundamental issue of social justice, he defied not only aunt Sally but the entire bourgeois society: he treated the enslaved man Jim as an equal human being and refused to comply with the runaway slave laws. Let's hope that some of these anti-maskers surprise us by showing they have a deeper sense of solidarity with fellow residents of the USA or planet Earth and given some time, rise to the level of morality of a Huckleberry Finn.
This blog received the following comment. I publish it below because it demonstrates a point of view of some angry, frustrated people. Democrats who under-estimate the hostility that is out there will fail to appreciate the difficulty Biden faces, the level of misogyny extant in the country. Police have told me they do not consider the likely author of this post to be dangerous. My own observation is that the likely author represents a certain brand of Republican populist thinking. He does not represent the local Republican Party, but the author is representative of many people in it, and he gets a minority of votes from it when he runs for local political offices.
"Pussies wear masks.
Submitters wear masks.
Followers wear masks.
People who are doomed to be dominated by elitists wear masks.
When elitist California Governor Gavin Newsom has a big dinner party with his elitist friends, they don't wear any stinking masks.
Shove your diaper mask up your ass, PUSSY."
Published by Peter Sage on behalf of an anonymous poster who used the name of someone else to post.
A significant proportion of Democrats will object to the ads you’re proposing as “mansplaining.”
What seems obvious to some is lost on others.
What I've observed is that in some situations people don't "get it" until it affects them directly. Until that moment, when it's likely too late to escape the consequences, a combination of denial, hubris and ignorance serves them well in their need to feel superior to others, which is nothing more than an expression of crippling low self-esteem.
What I've described is basically a 12 year old boy with bad parenting. We are in fix, a worldwide pandemic that coincides with an equally serious epidemic of arrested development. The ad you feature panders to that fantasy, a mediaeval image of masculinity typified by a rugged physique and intimidating mien.
Whatever the politics of doing nothing to mitigate the spread, here and elsewhere, ponder for a moment a world where no vaccine is possible, around 1200 AD for instance, and the mentality of these Regressive leaders becomes clearer.
Michael Trigoboff. Do you have a better idea ? Or are you just going to snipe ?
edc,
Pointing out a potential pitfall is not “sniping.” It’s pointing out a problem that might require a workaround.
No, I don’t have a better idea. My expertise is in computer science, not political marketing. A better idea is not a requirement for pointing out problems in the original idea.
Excellent idea. Get Sam Elliot to voice the ads. Elliot, who has a house around Eugene, has done ads for pickup trucks, beef, Coors beer and Keep Oregon Green (wildfire awareness). The Lead or be Led commercial, in particular, shows that real macho men (as opposed to over compensating fakers) can pick up the girls from pre-school. Most Dems don’t get that you can’t appeal to the average Joe through logic (“trust the scientists!”), you have to go visceral.
One of our kids lives in Alaska, works for a gold mining company where he's got to wear a mask if he wants to work. This company does temperature checks and follows up with testing and contact tracing. The work happens whether the outdoor temp is subzero or 90*, if it's blasting crew or maintenance or truck driver, if it's 24 hour days or nights, everybody wears one. Makes the work place safer, although it isn't fool proof. I haven't seen many unmasked civilians in news videos who could physically or mentally hold a candle to his colleagues. Just saying.
One possibility:
In WWII Japanese Americans were segregated in camps because of a perceived threat. Is this no less?
No mask? Off to Nevada!
We could call them "Freedom Villages".
Thoughts?
Dear Michael: I used to tell my people at work, if you see a problem give me a solution. I might not agree with the solution, but that’s okay. Otherwise, it’s just whining and I hate whiners. You’re whining.
Post a Comment