What A Difference A Day Makes: LONE WARRIOR! to LONE RANGER!
[guest post by Dana]
During an interview with Fox News, the LONE WARRIOR! was asked whether he thought mask-wearing should be federally mandated. (As a reminder, the president has refused to wear a mask, claiming that he would appear weak to world leaders if he wore one, and that he doesn’t need to wear one because those around him are regularly tested for Covid. He has also publicly mocked elected officials for wearing them.) Here is the pertinent part of the exchange:
Trump replied that he didn’t think a mandatory order was necessary because “many places” in the country feature people living “very long distances” from each other. Then the president… claimed he was “all for masks.”
“I think masks are good,” he stated, prompting the Fox host to press whether he’d wear one.
“I would—I have. I mean, people have seen me wearing one,” a rambling Trump responded. “If I’m in a group of people where we’re not, you know, ten feet away but usually I’m not in that position and everyone’s tested because I’m the president, they get tested before they see me but if I were in a tight situation with people, I would absolutely.”
Burman, meanwhile, asked whether the public would see the president wear one at some point. The only instance of the president having been spotted with a face mask occurred during a May trip to a Ford plant, where Trump briefly donned a mask away from the press in a back area while viewing some classic cars.
“I mean, I have no problem. Actually, I had a mask on,” Trump said, referencing the Ford plant moment. “I sort of like the way I looked, OK? I thought it was OK. It was a dark black mask and I thought it looked OK. Looked like the Lone Ranger. But no, I have no problem with that. I think—if people feel good about it they should do it.”
Ah, I never thought about the vanity angle of wearing a mask. Silly me. When deciding whether to wear a mask in public, I weighed out nonsense factors like scientific evidence suggesting that wearing a mask could help reduce the spread of infection and common sense telling me that a barrier could limit the spread of droplets and sprays that could contain germs. Heck, I even went so far as to ask myself what it would cost me to wear one for the sake of others. And the answer was, absolutely nothing! But now, thanks to the Lone Ranger himself, I find out that all I really needed to consider when making the decision, was whether I looked hot in the mask, and felt good wearing it.
–Dana
