Rashida Tlaib has joined the parade of high-profile Democrats flouting contentious rules or demands that apply to the rest of us.
Tlaib, a Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, was at a packed wedding over the weekend, dancing, unmasked, in a crowd of similarly unmasked revelers.
Only a week and a half ago, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a mask mandate, then immediately threw herself a massive unmasked birthday party (she had timed the mask mandate so it wouldn’t affect her party) and then officiated a wedding with an indoor reception at which she and most guests were unmasked.
Bowser was guilty of much more than hypocrisy, I argued last week. She didn’t merely falter and fail to live up to her own standards — everyone does that. She made it crystal clear that she didn’t believe vaccinated people, especially if they are surrounded by other vaccinated people, have good reason to wear a mask, yet she forced everyone to do it anyway.
Tlaib made that perfectly clear, too. She is vaccinated. She has repeatedly stressed how loyal she is to the science. So when she goes and dances maskless at a wedding, she makes it very clear that she doesn’t fear contracting or spreading COVID-19. Why doesn’t she fear that?
She knows the vaccines give her and the people around her robust protection from any serious case of COVID-19.
James Surowiecki puts it well on Twitter:
The CDC’s new guidelines are inevitably turning vaccinated politicians into hypocrites, because vaxxed people – especially younger ones – know they’re at little risk from the virus and are going to do things like this with their friends. https://t.co/Pr1dDdQmwB
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) August 10, 2021
The problem isn’t that these hypocrites were going maskless. The problem is that they dishonestly claimed to believe that vaccinated people need to wear masks in all public and private indoor settings outside of their own homes.
