Of Course the Masks are Political

In September, Director of the CDC Robert Redfield said that wearing a mask was (and still is) the most effective way to prevent COVID-19 transmission. This was based on overwhelming scientific evidence and international scientific consensus. The well-respected journal Nature, published an article in October explaining the process by which scientists first, doubted the efficacy of masks, then, after several case and clinical studies, realized their effectiveness.

While the scientific community is, by definition, open to new information, right-wing news media has no such predilection. That has been painfully demonstrated by the emergence of anti-mask sentiment in right-wing circles.

On March 8, Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview there was "no reason" to wear a mask. In April, the CDC updated its guidelines --based on new research--to include mask wearing and Fauci changed his message. It was too late, the president was already casting aspersions on face coverings, citing Fauci's earlier claims. He very quickly whipped his base into a fervor, characterizing masks as government overreach, "politically correct", and as a desolation of constitutional freedoms. It wasn't long before right-wing publications like Breitbart, the Washington Examiner, and Fox News took up this same narrative.

While this was irresponsible and damaging, I do not think we can lay the blame entirely at Trump's feet. While I can't prove this with data (I lack a counterfactual) It is my belief that anti-mask-ism would have emerged regardless. Obviously, the spread of misinformation about the pandemic was exacerbated by Trump, there's data to back this claim, but anti-maskers are but a new iteration of a problem endemic to American conservatism.

Since the Reagan presidency, conservatives have renewed their emphasis on personal responsibility. As the more engaged government of the 70s retreated, talk of government handouts, welfare abuse, and federal overreach abounded. The conservative counter-culture inculcated a 'neo-frontierism', of sorts: the less government in personal affairs, the better. Each person was responsible for his or her own success or failure. The system (capitalism, democracy, etc.) would sort the winners from the losers.

To make this ideology work, the government had to abstain from mandates. It was the job of the individual, not of the government, to sort out the good decisions from the bad. Since the Reagan era, this ideology has remained in conservative discourse. We can see it playing out now, with masks. 

And before the masks, there was second-hand smoke. 

Second-Hand Smoke

The reaction to second-hand smoke research broke, pretty nearly, along partisan lines. With conservatives and Republican legislators opposing smoking bans as a matter of state's rights and individual liberty and liberals and Democrats calling for widespread smoking bans (California was the first to institute a state-wide smoking ban in indoor workplaces). From the early 1990s to the 2000s, smoking bans were a political issue replete with arguments, studies, and (of course) conspiracy theories.

In 1995, the conservative Washington Times published an article with the subheading "second-hand smoke scare" which derided the Congressional Research Service's (admittedly questionable) findings of lung cancer from second-hand smoke. Later studies, with more robust methodology, found better connections between second-hand smoke and other health issues, while lung cancer was discredited as a major risk. But, as more Americans latched onto the ambiguity, the issue became less scientific and more political. Second-hand smoke became a trojan horse for government overreach, rather than a matter of public health.

As is the case now, the progression of the scientific process was fanaticized by the media. There was inevitable disillusionment as the science changed with new data, and people sprang on the shortfall as vindication for ignoring the science altogether. Making the scientific process political opened it to attacks from conservative pundits.

But anti-smoking was not the only issue accosted by this ideology.

Anti-Vaxxers

The US anti-vaccination movement was borne out of similar feverish machinations. In 1998, The Lancet medical journal published a small study "linking" the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination to autism in 8 of 12 studied children. The study was later debunked, redacted by The Lancet, and the researcher (Andrew Wakefield) relieved of his medical license. 

It was too little, too late. 

Thousands of people in the US now oppose vaccinations. Other conspiracy theories bolstered by fake science and trolls have emerged around vaccines, including extreme fears about microchips and the "mark of the beast" from the Biblical book of Revelation. 

Conservatives used vaccinations as a wedge issue, claiming mandatory vaccines were government overreach, but justified this worldview with alternative "science". In 2013, a  study published in PLOS on "Conspiracist Ideation" and anti-science ideology, found that anti-vaccination among conservatives was largely explained by small government ideology. In other words, ideology drove belief in anti-vaccination conspiracies.

This elaborates a troubling causal link. It is not the misinformation which generates the opposition to collective solutions (like mandatory vaccination). Instead, it is the ideology which makes people more susceptible to misinformation.

Ideology and Science

We return now to the masks. Here we see the same pattern. People who are ideologically opposed to large government are more likely to promote conspiracy theories and bad science. A June study by Pew Research found that "Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are about twice as likely as Republicans and Republican leaners to say that masks should be worn always". In fact, "Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to say that masks should rarely or never be worn".  

Predictably, mask-wearing breaks along party lines. And opposition toward mask-wearing is backed by conspiracies, bad data, and misinformation. A full third of Republicans believe that the pandemic was planned by powerful people. Nearly half of Republicans believe COVID is no worse than the common flu. And 63% of Republicans believe COVID deaths have been artificially inflated. 

It seems that the ideology begets opposition to government intervention to solve collective problems. And opposition to government intervention begets the need for justification. 

The truth is, without mask mandates, tens of thousands of our fellow Americans will die. To justify this, conservatives need something to back their claims. If masks don't work anyway, one need not feel guilty, one need not compromise on one's ideology.

So to the ideologue, the CDC and Dr. Fauci must be liars. The data has been misinterpreted or misrepresented. And epidemiologists and virologists have to be puppets of the deep-state. 

Believe no one. The science is fake. Don't feel guilty. 

Of course, the masks are political.