Do Not Blame Governors For Prioritizing Public Health––Blame Your Covidiot Pals

People across the nation are riled up at their governors. With COVID-19 spiking, some governors have done the the unthinkable. They’ve listened to President Elect Biden, Vice President Elect Harris, top scientists, the Center for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization: they’ve issued mask mandates.

Biden and Harris’s COVID-19 plan calls for mask mandates from governors, and as hospital beds fill up, according to The New York Times, places like Oregon, Utah, North Dakota, and West Virginia have issued mask mandates. And some folks aren’t happy about it. Spewing the same anti-science rhetoric they’ve used since the pandemic began, they’re ranting about personal freedom and executive power.

Stop blaming your governors for mask mandates, people. Blame your friends.

Mask Mandates Blowback On Governors

Oregon governor Kate Brown is one of those governors. She’s issued new restrictions, including mask mandates, that have supporters up in arms. Brown says “her decisions are being driven by the best available science,” according to Oregon Live. Republicans in her state claim that she is “vastly overreaching her authority and driving the economy into the ground.”

While courts have backed her use of executive power, Republicans are still playing the mask issue as a partisan wedge, even claiming it’s part of a plot to increase Democratic power in the state. Meanwhile, our President Elect, reports The New York Times, has held up a paper mask and demanded, “Does anybody understand why a governor would turn this into a political statement?”

The orange loser has promised Republican primary challengers to governors who deviate from his proudly anti-science stance and implement mask mandates. South Dakota’s governor, reports The New York Times, remains a noted holdout as the virus burns through her state. She said at a rally last month that South Dakotans “are happy because they are free.” We can only assume she was referring to the uninfected population. South Dakota currently has the highest positivity rate in the country, reports CNN.

Don’t Blame Your Governors For Your Mask Mandates

Are you angry you have to wear a mask everywhere, Utahans? Are you mad you can’t walk around Target without fogging your glasses, West Virginians? Is it inconvenient to remember your PPE, Oregonians? Don’t blame your governors for your mask mandates.

Blame each other.

You are responsible for this pandemic, not your governors. They’re the clean-up crew. You made the mess.

When you throw family parties without masks on, you’re spreading the pandemic. When you refuse to socially distance at church, indoors, maskless, while you sing at the top of your lungs, this is your fault. When your college kids throw a maskless boat party and you let them come home to socialize (also maskless), you’re compounding the problem.

You are the ones spreading COVID-19 through your carelessness.

This Is Your Fault

The CDC has asked you to do a few very, very simple things. You have been asked to wear a mask when you leave the home. You have been asked to keep six feet from people at all times, but especially when indoors. You have been asked to stay home as much as possible, and to wash your hands. That’s all. In the beginning, we didn’t make mask mandates. Mistake.

Many people have demonstrated proper mask-wearing to you. It does not involve dangling the mask from your chin or exposing your nose.

Many people have demonstrated proper social distancing to you with everything from yardsticks to alligators (thanks, sign at the zoo).

You have been asked to avoid gathering with people who aren’t in your “bubble,” and when you do, you have been asked to stay masked and distanced. Masked and distanced, people. Masked and distanced.

Translated, you cannot: throw a baby shower, snarf Thanksgiving with the extended fam, meet up for a barbecue, celebrate New Jersey’s newly legal recreational marijuana with friends, or sneak out for some beers with your coworkers. When you do these things, you spread COVID-19.

Currently, the CDC’s best guess rates 40% of COVID-19 cases as asymptomatic, and estimates that 50% of COVID-19 transmission occurs before symptoms are present. In other words: people without symptoms are the people doing the spreading.

So don’t bitch at your governor for impinging upon your personal freedom. You had your personal freedom. Like a child, you chose to abuse it for your selfish interests rather than acting for the good of the community. Therefore, you need someone to step in and create mask mandates, because you’re too selfish to do what’s right on your own.

Leave Your Governor Out of This

So stop blaming your governor for mask mandates. Stop whining about your loss of personal freedom. You don’t choose basic civic responsibilities. You pay your taxes, whether or not you send you kids to school. You drive on the right side of the road, whether or not you were born in England. You wear a mask, whether or not your glasses fog up.

By the way, if your mask fits well and you push them down your nose a bit, they won’t fog anymore.

This is not a Democratic plot, and politicizing mask mandates was the height of stupidity in the first place. Like Joe Biden said, according to The New York Times, “There is nothing macho about not wearing a mask.” He also had plenty of good things to say about your so-called power hungry governors who were doing the right thing, offering “enormous respect” for them and calling wearing a mask “patriotic.”

Do it for Gramma. Do it for Uncle Joe Biden. Do it for America. Do it because your governor damn well told you to.

But wear a f*cking mask.