The War on Masks Is Another Lost Cause
For too many of the president’s supporters, masks represent capitulation to the liberal elite.
Matching masks and hats are available.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images North AmericaWhen a man in a MAGA hat was asked to put on a mask last week at a suburban Kansas City restaurant, as state law requires, he said he had an exemption. Then he lifted his shirt to reveal a holstered firearm. A customer who refused to wear a mask at a convenience store in Michigan this week stabbed a fellow customer and was later shot dead by police.
Despite the recommendations of health officials, the requirements of an increasing number of retail stores and the force of laws — or perhaps because of them — many citizens are still resisting masks. Covid-19 has spurred a tangled knot of health-care, economic and political crises. For supporters of President Donald Trump, however, those crises have produced another: a brutal rejoinder to the magical thinking that is foundational to the MAGA creed.