Earlier this month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott lifted the statewide mask mandate, and liberal heads promptly exploded. President Joe Biden called it “Neanderthal thinking,” tempting some to say “takes one to know one.” Public health experts were aghast. The media had a meltdown.
A Washington Post reporter reacted to Abbott’s decision by sharing an article from last September that a “mass casualty event” was happening every day in Texas. Another journalist called Abbott and people who agree with him “wingnuts,” and a liberal website declared Abbott, “showed that there is no limit to how far Republicans will go to kill people by lifting Texas’s mask mandate.”
But Abbott’s order, which went into effect March 10 and also gave businesses the option of going to 100 percent capacity, hasn’t stopped the downward trajectory of positive coronavirus tests. Fewer people are getting sick after Abbott gave Texas citizens the option of wearing a mask or not. Businesses also had the option of maintaining a mask requirement.
Lifting the mandate did not mean that Abbott was saying people couldn’t or shouldn’t wear a mask. But that’s the way that the governor’s political enemies portrayed the order. It turns out, the naysayers look pretty foolish at this point.
Despite the outrage, The Texas Department of State Health Services reported on Thursday that new coronavirus cases have declined since the mask mandate was lifted. The New York Times daily tracker shows Texas daily coronavirus cases are down 28 percent from two weeks ago.
Fox News contributor Guy Benson shared a variety of headlines from news organizations sounding the alarm on March 2. Newsweek focused on Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke calling the decision a “death warrant for Texans,” a local ABC affiliate declared,” Model projections for Texas show worst-case scenario without mask mandate,” CNN editor-at-large Chris Cillizza wrote about Abbott’s “head-scratching, anti-science decision” and another headline declared Abbott’s decision could result in another coronavirus surge.
“Just wait two weeks!” https://t.co/V35jaMXBpp pic.twitter.com/UQXOrmM2ac
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 26, 2021
Why does it surprise anyone that, when using their own judgment, people can take care of themselves and their families? What is it about freedom of choice that these people hate so much?
While Texas is by no means out of the woods yet, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if the number of positive tests starts going back up, more people will wear masks. People are smart like that.
Meanwhile, is anyone going to apologize for getting hysterical about lifting the mask mandate?
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “The entire country has paid the price for political leaders who ignore the science,” and actor Matthews McConaughey even spoke out about his home state.
“I was a little dumbfounded by the decision,” McConaughey said on “CBS This Morning.” “I understand ‘go back to work.’ What I did not understand was ‘pull the mask mandate.'”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the move “absolutely reckless,” and Twitter was flooded with hot takes from people who called Abbott’s decision everything from “crazy” to “embarrassing.”
You can detect a pattern here. The less these “experts” trust ordinary people with a little freedom, the direr their predictions.
Of course, all of these doom and gloom forecasts will be forgotten in time. The idiots will never be called to account for their ignorance. And when the next issue comes along where people don’t “follow the science,” we’ll have to endure the same nonsense from the same sources.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member