Yeah:
In retrospect it’s clear that the biggest mistake public officials made in the early weeks of this pandemic was to ask the public to be considerate of other people. All the safety measures should’ve been framed as selfishness.
— Matt Zoller Seitz (@mattzollerseitz) May 23, 2020
I mean, as much as anything would shut the NRA crowd up, maybe a message of WEAR A MASK SO A FOREIGNER DOES NOT GIVE YOUR WHITE DAUGHTERS THE PLAGUE would have helped. These hissyfits almost never make sense, though, so I’m hesitant to attribute the behavior of the president’s fanclub to actual things and not to, say, whatever propaganda they’re absorbing through who knows what kind of talk radio signals.
Look, I’m claustrophobic and wear glasses and a mask makes me HUGELY uncomfortable. The sight of crowds of people in masks tweaks something in me and it’s scary, and you know what?
MY FEELINGS DON’T MATTER AT ALL GOOD GOD.
Crowds of people in masks seem scary, and so the answer to that isn’t to not wear a mask, it’s to not vote for a headass sentient cheeto who mishandles a pandemic so badly that we need to wear masks in crowds instead of having a summer that looks like last summer.
If I don’t want to wear a mask, or see crowds of people wearing masks, I can stay home, stay away from crowds, and not do things like go to stores or the farmer’s market. That’s how I can not be scared while also NOT POTENTIALLY SPEWING VIRUS ALL OVER PEOPLE OR TAKING IT IN THROUGH MY FACE. It’s really a dumb argument to have to make, which is the point of making us make it, which is to distract us from all the dead people.
This isn’t about freedom, it never is. And it’s not even about protecting ourselves, because if it was, we’d be protecting ourselves by voting out every member of the GOP forever until the end of time. That’s the only way to end this.
A.
I agree with every word you wrote.
I’m wicked claustrophobic, too. I hate wearing a mask, I can’t stand anything over my face whatsoever. But I do it. & I don’t complain about it.
I complain about it incessantly. In fact, I’ve bonded with (and calmed down) more than one fellow annoyed customer through our shared loathing of masks. But we do this complaining THROUGH THE MASK!
Yeah, I whine and complain and piss and moan and grump and groan like it’s my dream job that I’ve been training for my entire life, but I do this while WEARING THE BLINKING MASK!!!
It’s one of those, “you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it the right way,” things.
It’s hard to complain about people being inconsiderate (selfish) when you vote for politicians who are promising to rob your neighbor.