On Feb. 4, at a grocery store in Alexandria, Virginia, a customer was unhappy that Gov. Glenn Youngkin wasn’t wearing a mask. So she yelled out, “Governor, where’s your mask?”
Youngkin calmly responded, “We’re all making choices today.” Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to satisfy her. “Yeah, look around you, governor. You’re in Alexandria. Read the room, buddy!”
Ah, yes. Alexandria. It is a northern Virginia city, similar to my current, deep-blue hometown of Arlington. That shopper wanted the governor to know he wasn’t in the southwestern Virginia hinterlands where the knuckle-dragging conservatives don’t wear masks. So naturally, her performative diatribe got a favorable reception from familiar quarters. The University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato tweeted she was a “marvelous woman.” The Democratic Coalition, a left-wing super PAC, called her “awesome.” Yahoo News framed the story as Youngkin getting “called out” for not wearing a mask.
The sentiment was similar when Youngkin signed an executive order making masks optional in Virginia public schools. However, some school boards, mainly in the northern part of the state, “defied” the governor by maintaining their mask mandates. White House press secretary Jen Psaki praised Arlington Public Schools for “standing up for our kids, teachers, and administrators and their safety.”
Maybe I was raised differently, but screaming at someone in public is not what I’d call “awesome.” Besides, former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam rescinded the statewide mask mandate last May. Youngkin wasn’t required to wear a mask, and he wasn’t the only one in the store without one.
There is no need for me to bore you with the excruciatingly mundane details of how maskless children are not at risk or how developmentally deleterious it was for them to wear masks for nearly two years — because something changed in the country fewer than two weeks following the woman’s rude outburst at Youngkin, and it wasn’t “the science.”
Democrats saw the writing on the wall — people had enough of the constantly changing rules centered on masks and other mandates and restrictions. So, for example, across the Potomac in Washington, D.C., the proof-of-vaccination rules Mayor Muriel Bowser put in place ended on Feb. 14, a mere 10 days after the grocery store incident. In addition, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Mexico, and Nevada all ditched mask mandates within the same period.
The elimination of school mask mandates quickly followed. As Warden Norton from The Shawshank Redemption exclaimed, “Lord! It’s a miracle!”
In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden said, “Just a few days ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new mask guidelines. Under these new guidelines, most Americans in most of the country can now go mask-free.” I’m sure it is entirely coincidental the CDC updated masking guidelines days before the State of the Union.
Democrats finally read the room. As much as the scolds want people to believe the scientific circumstances changed, the reality is at the time of the Alexandria Yelling Incident, cases were already plummeting. The omicron wave peaked in mid-January, and as the numbers proved, the variant primarily affected the unvaccinated. It was all about political considerations.
Yet Democrats persist in assuming their constituents are stupid, insisting “the science” allowed for the sudden turnabout. What they cannot grasp is how many people tune them out. And it isn’t only Republicans and conservatives. Many in their coalition feel the same way, and while they might not go so far as to vote Republican, they might stay at home on Election Day.
Unfortunately, Democrats can’t make the smart move to declare victory over COVID-19 and move on. The “COVID-19 Forever Caucus” still has too much power within the party’s core, and Democrats will quickly fall in line if there is another wave. It is no longer about “the science” for many people. It is all about “doing the right thing” and making people “feel” safe. And if that means imposing pointless mask mandates, then so be it.
Democrats finally seem to understand the political risks. The question is whether they’ll cave or stand up and say “No” to save their political skins.
For the rest of us, however, the masks are off.
