Retailers and reluctant governors finally issuing mask orders, but diehards gonna diehard

The national "debate" over whether to do the literally smallest possible thing to end the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States—put on a damn mask when in a public place—continues to be virulently stupid and good evidence the United States really is an "exceptional" country in, ahem, at least one unfortunate way. We are extremely fortunate in that masks appear to be reasonably effective in combating this particular virus. We could return to something approaching almost-normal, if every state had a mask mandate. And that's precisely what we would have already done, had not a gibbering toxic crapmonster and his allies turned "do the minimal possible thing" into a burping conspiracy-laced rant about The Freedoms.

After months of bullshit, however, the all-heralded free market may yet have the last word. Following immediately on the heels of announced mandatory mask policies by Costco, Walmart, Starbucks, and Best Buy, now megaretailers Target and CVS will also be requiring masks nationwide. The reasons are pretty simple: As the second pandemic wave takes off, America's biggest brands do not want to end up in the news as nationwide virus hotspots.

Recalcitrant state governors are also having second thoughts. You can be assured that if Walmart stores do not want to be known as COVID-19 distribution hubs, governors who still have visions of keeping careers after this also are reevaluating past theories about letting the virus run amok and letting the doctors, hospitals, and morgues sort it out.

The governors of Colorado and Arkansas today issued new statewide mask orders. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced new "three strikes and you're closed" penalties on restaurants and bars found to be violating social distancing orders.

Then there are the diehards, the arch-conservatives who don't believe the pandemic is a serious health risk and who are more than willing to risk your life to prove it. Despite his state now being one of the COVID-19 hot spots of the nation, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp yesterday banned mask mandates in his state, one of the more brazen conservative attempts to simply kill people off en masse. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms today told Kemp to pound sand, and that she'd be enforcing the city's mask mandate at least in the "buildings and places" that her city owns and operates. Kemp quickly responded with a lawsuit demanding she stop.

We shall see whether Kemp calls out the National Guard to free the city's conservatives from not being able to spray fellow residents with a deadly virus as God intended.

If you want a good taste of absolute insanity, however, a story of the Republican cult gone so far over the edge that they really do intend to kill off scores of people around them rather than inconvenience themselves in even the slightest and lightest of fashion, The Salt Lake Tribune has you covered. The spectacle of a lily-white crowd of raging conservative moms, dads, and Karens packing into a room to scream at those who would dare propose state public school students wear masks when (if) classes return this fall quickly became the talk of the internet.

"They wore 'Trump 2020' hats and carried little American flags, and every time someone said 'freedom' or 'constitutional rights' the whole room cheered," reported the Tribune, neatly summarizing just how far into hell we've gotten and providing a good look at the hand basket.

Shrieking Trump supporters going into buzzword-premised spasms in the demand that their kids be exposed to more coronavirus, goddamnit, is the most compelling evidence to date that many humans among us are in fact devolving into a more primitive state. Human evolution could not last forever, after all. Once we started enforcing seatbelt regulations, putting warning signs on heavy machinery, and including little notices telling people to not eat rat poison, that element of mankind that quietly Darwin'd themselves out of existence in past generations began to reach breeding age, and now they're waving little flags around and wearing red hats. We may have done this to ourselves.

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