After polling showed continued Wuhan coronavirus restrictions in blue states are highly unpopular, a number of Democratic governors finally caved this week and announced mask mandates will be dropped. In New York and California, mask mandates are no longer required for adults but children in school will remain muzzled.
But with the pivot comes blatant and widespread dishonestly about "following the science." More than a year ago, red state governors like Georgia's Brian Kemp and Florida's Ron DeSantis did away restrictions. Republican Governor Kristi Noem never implemented any at all. For months the White House has been asked when Americans can look forward to freeing their faces and get back to normal, only to be met with endless timelines and moving goal posts.
The current shift among Democrats has nothing to do with epidemiology, which they've ignored on masking since summer 2020. Instead, it's about political science.
Now, they're trying to take credit and conservatives are blasting the gaslighting.
18 months after everyone with a brain was against mask mandates and smothering our children and our freedoms Democrats are pretending to be campions of the reversal of their draconian Policies BS as though it never happened because SCIENCE… (polling)
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 9, 2022
This hasty surrender on masks by most Democratic politicians, from federal to state level, tells you the polling numbers on mask mandates must be absolutely devastating in an election year. . . All a crass political calculation. If they had their way, masks in perpetuity.
— Ned Ryun (@nedryun) February 9, 2022
You're a damned joke. Democrats have literally nothing to do with the drop in covid cases, and vaccines were widely available because of the development and distribution plan developed prior to Biden becoming president. The rational among us have been back to normal for a YEAR. https://t.co/DjiplYK2LE
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 9, 2022
Joe Biden did not crush the virus.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 9, 2022
Democrats did not follow the data.
Blue state elites did not even follow their own restrictions.
Now they're trying to gaslight you.
Don't let them.
Democrats are going to spend the next 8 months trying to gaslight us into thinking they didn’t support masking children, closing schools, & ruining communities.
— Abigail Marone ???? (@abigailmarone) February 9, 2022
Don't let them gaslight you.
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) February 9, 2022
Democrats have spent two years championing lockdowns and mandates. In the name of 'science,' liberal politicians kept schools closed for months, shut down playgrounds, and completely altered the childhood of an entire generation of children.
We must never, ever let these monsters gaslight us and we can never forget what they did to our children. Ever. https://t.co/SVL6RLcI2l
— Jeremy Frankel (@FrankelJeremy) February 9, 2022
Easing mandates now won’t un-bankrupt small businesses, or restore the years of education children lost, or un-fire those who wouldn’t comply, or bring back the two years of life they stole—or even prevent them from doing this again. These are crimes. Don’t let them gaslight you.
— Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) February 9, 2022