This week a photo of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams went viral for all the wrong reasons.
During an event at a Georgia elementary school, Abrams was photographed sitting in front of a roomful of children. All of the kids were masked while Abrams, bearing a massive grin, was not. She was so proud of the event she tweeted a photo for the world to see.
Immediately people noticed the discrepancy and hypocrisy. When the justified outrage reached a fever pitch, the cringeworthy photo was deleted, and Abrams made her way to CNN to say she was wrong.
"I apologize," Abrams said, trying to explain away her mask privilege. "I took the mask off because I was speaking remotely to two other classrooms and wanted all of them to hear me."
What a novel idea, students being able to hear someone teaching inside a classroom. Abrams wanted to be heard, and therefore, took her mask off — literally and figuratively. Her statements in the aftermath were quite revealing.
Abrams said nothing, to CNN or during her remarks to students, about allowing children to be more comfortable while they learn. Her solution to the problem, even after getting blasted for her behavior, wasn't to advocate for the kids to be unmasked. Instead, she argued they should continue to be muzzled inside their classrooms.
"Covid hygiene is going to be a point of debate for a very long time, and we can only follow the science and follow our circumstances, unfortunately in Georgia, we're not at a place where that conversation [about lifting mask mandates in schools] is ready," she continued.
As Democratic governors come to grips with negative polling in their own blue states about ongoing pandemic restrictions, mask mandates are being dropped. But in New York and California, adults can free their faces while children in school must remain masked up.
"Governor Kathy Hochul announced the end of the indoor mask mandate in New York State effective Thursday," New York ABC 7 reports. "While Connecticut and New Jersey are already among a handful of states with plans to ease mask mandates in schools, Governor Hochul hasn't made the same move, and won't until the first week of March at the earliest."
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has also been photographed maskless while surrounded by faceless elementary school children.
An understanding of leftist thought reveals their efforts to make adults comfortable at the expense of children is simply an extension of their deeply rooted pro-abortion philosophy.
With few exceptions, Democrats believe in abortion — many up until the birth of a baby — for the sake of convenience. They claim pregnancy is a hardship that should be easily wiped away for the sake of comforting the adults who created a child. There is no concern for the life created or the pain an unborn child feels while literally being ripped apart through abortion. The comfort of adults takes all priority.
This same concept is applicable to the left's views on masking children. Teachers' unions continue to advocate that children stay masked in schools to protect vaccinated adults who "feel unsafe." The costs to children be damned.
"How do we make sure that an entire community in a school feels safe and welcome?" American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten asked MSNBC.
Pay no attention to the facts about the severity of the disease for children and for vaccinated adults. Both are low. For children, in particular, the risk of severe disease or death from the virus sits near a zero percent chance. Not to mention, "feeling safe" is an impossible standard and very different than being safe while calculating and accepting risk. Further, evidence continues to pile up that shows masking children is far more detrimental to their development and learning than Wuhan coronavirus itself.
"A new study from Canada found that children have a harder time recognizing faces of those wearing COVID-19 masks than adults, raising fears about their ability to socialize and make friends," the New York Post reports. "The masks, which have become an essential part of the daily lives of millions of students in America for nearly two years, change the typical way children's brains recognize faces, the York University study found."
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Democrats have always put kids last and adults first. Anybody familiar with their thinking on the rights of children inside the womb, which are trampled by the convenient comforts of adults, shouldn't be surprised.