The image of maskless Trump supporters standing behind the president at rallies has become an unfairly maligned symbol of an unfairly maligned segment of the U.S. population. So much so that the campaign has even made an effort to mask them up with Trump masks, only succeeding to a limited degree with those standing directly behind the president facing the cameras. “Trump supporters are COVIDidiots who are toying with death,” says the left as they toss about dismissive phrases like “science deniers” and “Darwin awards.” To them, those of us who eschew masks are backwoods rubes, if not would-be mass-murderers who have made saving grandma all about politics.
Fair enough. To us, mask-proponents are herd-driven, frightened sheeple who care more about signalling their endless virtue (lol) than following data, facts, and real science. But whatever. To be sure, mask-wearing has become political, although I would argue that it is the proponents of forced-masking who have made it so, not the other way around. They are the ones demanding of us a potentially harmful positive action - both to one’s health and to society as a whole - based on dubious science and even more dubious real-world results.
Even so, since they brought it up, let’s talk about those politics for a bit. Do you ever wonder why the left primarily seems to be in love with their face diapers and quite obviously wants to wear them forever, while the right tends to either grudgingly use them or avoid them like the, er, plague? Is there something innate to the right-or-left thinking mind that precludes us to take a certain position on this issue, or is it all just caused by Bad Orange Man? If it were only grandfatherly Uncle Joe screaming “C’MON MAN, PUT ON A DAMN MASK!” from his basement while wearing four of them at the same time, would he have gotten more compliance from conservatives?
Now to be fair, overall compliance IS pretty high, sadly. A recent Gallup poll found that 80% of Americans are “highly likely” to wear a mask in public indoor spaces (and yet, astonishingly, the virus continues to spread). Breaking down the politics, however, finds Democrats at 87% and Republicans at 74%. Not huge, but significant, and although there are certainly plenty of Republicans who have tragically fallen for the hoax, it’s pretty fair to say the vast majority of those you see trying to tell the unvarnished truth about the futility of forced masking to stop a highly contagious respiratory virus tend to be conservatives.
Why is this? I’ve got some workable theories, and all have to do with a few key differences in worldview:
Leftists love ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches
From climate change to healthcare to education to lockdowns, those on the left continually advocate for one-size-fits-all approaches that ultimately render their proposals not only super-expensive, but unworkable in a country as large, diverse, and spread out as ours. So it’s really no surprise to see them advocating for masks outdoors in non-crowded spaces with the same vigor they would on a crowded bus or airplane. Now, I’ve got rational, scientific reasons to be against masks almost anywhere, but even I can understand why they might at least be advocated for in a big, crowded city like New York City or Chicago. But there’s no sense of balance to the mask-worshipping hand-wringers, who’ve lost all credibility by insisting mask-mandates be implemented and enforced virtually everywhere and in almost every situation. Because when simple minds have a hammer, everything around them looks like a nail.
Leftist love to control other people, especially those they disagree with ideologically
If this were a super-deadly pandemic that was killing great numbers of people not already on death’s door AND face masks were scientifically proven to stop it, then maybe there would be some justification for mandating them for a short period of time. And governments have always had and should always have the right to quarantine the sick (*sick* being the operative word) if a deadly disease is spreading in an area. But when masks are mandated even in places where the virus isn’t spreading and have been for months on end, with zero end in sight, it’s hard to argue that the basic human desire for control of others (present to an even more dangerous degree among leftists) isn’t playing a role here. If you can watch the mind-blowing shenanigans of ghouls like Gretchen Whitmer, Eric Garcetti, and Bill de Blasio and honestly think these people don’t get off on using their power to lord it over others, you’re deceiving yourself.
Leftists love big government mandates
The maskers don’t want to ‘convince’ you to put on a face burqa. They can’t really do that anyway. Once you go beyond the surface argument of supposedly stopping ‘muh droplets,’ the idea is patently absurd not just on its face, but when analyzed by any sort of honest science. Thus, they need the force of law, or executive edict/mandate, to enforce their irrational fears on those of us who think beyond their propaganda.
Leftists love to suppress free speech they disagree with, especially if it comes from medical professionals and scientists on the opposite side of their views
There was a time when liberals would defend one’s right to speak, even if they disagreed with what was being said. That time, sadly, is long gone. Sure, if there wasn’t a First Amendment they’d probably have us all in gulags, but nowadays who needs government speech suppression when you can use intimidation, public shaming, gaslighting, and your Big Tech ideological allies to shut down dissenting opinions as well as Joseph Stalin ever could have.
Leftists despise personal freedom
Other than the ‘freedom’ to have an abortion or ‘switch’ the gender of a confused five-year-old, leftists tend to hate personal freedom, especially the kind that leads to robust, successful, liberty-loving societies. Individuality has always been hated by a left that tends to prefer the State and the collective. When we gave them the power to force humans to cover one of the most important aspects of our individuality (thus turning us visually into faceless clones), is anyone surprised to see them run with it as far as they can go? Did you ever in your wildest dreams think you’d lose the freedom to breathe free air while walking in public? Well, it’s gone, and we’re going to have to fight like hell to get it back.
Leftists hate seeing other people happy when they aren’t
Jealousy is part of human nature, to be sure, but it also seems to be a bigger problem among those on the left. That’s ultimately why they tend to favor socialism over a free market system. Seeing other people succeed wildly doesn’t drive these ghouls to work hard and seek their own success, but instead makes them want to steal it in some way, preferably legally using government force. To wit, I believe that mask and other sorts of COVID shaming come less from any real concern the left has for health and more from the fact that they just can’t stand to see people happy and living a life that deviates from the dystopian, fear-filled existence they’ve chosen for themselves.
There are doubtless plenty more, but here’s the bottom line: Leftists are generally miserable people who get twisted pleasure from trying to make the lives of others as sad as their own. As such, their zealous, quasi-religious love of universal forced masking should take none of us by surprise.
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