More than one pundit has compared the premature declaration of victory over the pandemic by such hacks as Texas' Neanderthal Gov. Greg "Yabbadabba" Abbott (Secession - TX) to spiking the football on the 10 yard line. In today's New York Times, Nobel prize laureate Paul Krugman looks at the reckless decision by some Republican governors to eliminate mask restrictions and "open" businesses up "100%", which reflects their broken party's new identity:
"So what’s motivating the rush to unmask? It’s not economics. As I said, the costs of mask-wearing are trivial. And basic economics tells us that people should have incentives to take into account costs they impose on others; if potentially exposing those you meet to a deadly disease isn’t an 'externality,' I don’t know what is.
Furthermore, a resurgent pandemic would do more to damage growth and job creation, in Texas and elsewhere, than almost anything else I can think of.
Of course, we know what’s actually going on here: politics. Refusing to wear a mask has become a badge of political identity, a barefaced declaration that you reject liberal values like civic responsibility and belief in science. (Those didn’t used to be liberal values, but that’s what they are in America 2021.) [snip]
These days conservatives don’t seem to care about anything except identity politics, often expressed over the pettiest of issues. Democrats appear to be on the verge of enacting a huge relief bill that embodies many progressive policy priorities. But the Republican response has been remarkably low energy, and right-wing media are obsessed with the (falsely) alleged plot to make Mr. Potato Head gender-neutral." (our emphasis)
Many businesses there and in states like Mississippi with a comparably clueless Governor are smarter than their Republican state and local leaders. They're indicating that, if only for liability purposes, they will continue to enforce the wearing of masks and social distancing in their places of business for now. In the case of Texas, many are seeing Abbott's dangerous decision for what it is: changing the subject from his disastrous mismanagement of the lingering power and water crisis over the past few weeks. Sadly, with the pandemic and its variants still spreading, Abbott may need another diversion from that in a few weeks' time, and Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss are already taken.
