October 2, 2020

The Real Problem With Trump and Masks

At the announcement of Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court, practically everyone was maskless.Gripas Yuri/POOL via ZUMA

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I know this is obvious, but the lesson of Donald Trump’s infection is not that it’s a result of him refusing to wear a mask. It’s a result of him insisting that everyone around him not wear a mask.

This is the problem the nation faces with Trump’s politicization of masks: your personal safety doesn’t depend very much on wearing a mask. What matters is whether everyone else is wearing a mask—“herd mentality,” you might call it. In Trump country, where lots of people spurn the whole idea of masks, you’re going to be unsafe regardless of what precautions you take. In the case of Trump gatherings, where everyone gleefully goes unmasked in order to own the libs and provide the optics Trump wants, you’re unsafe even if you buck the trend and wear a mask yourself. Ditto for the floor of the Senate. Or the House.

At Trump events, it’s considered de rigueur to go maskless. Don’t want to upset Donald, after all. So naturally everyone was maskless at Trump’s announcement event for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. The result so far? Sen. Mike Lee is now positive for coronavirus. Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins is positive for coronavirus. RNC chair Ronna McDaniel wasn’t there, but she’s around the president and his staff all the time. Now they all have COVID-19 and more are sure to follow.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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