Trump Says Wearing a Mask is "Politically Correct" as COVID-19 Death Toll Tops 100K

More than 100,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19 since early February.

As unacceptably high as those numbers are things would be much worse if we didn't wear masks when outdoors and when in areas where one cannot maintain social distancing.

But President Trump has undermined these efforts by refusing to wear a mask in public. Yesterday, he escalated this stance by demanding that Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason remove his mask during a Rose Garden press conference. When Mason stood his ground, Trump chortled, "You want to be politically correct."

Wearing a mask during a global pandemic has nothing to do with being politically correct, it has everything to do with protecting public health and with respect. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo understands this clearly. So does Joe Biden.

But Trump being Trump is trying to turn respect on its ear not only with his demand of Mason, but with his criticism of Biden wearing a mask during Memorial Day ceremonies. Trump's criticism has been reinforced by White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Fox News apologist Brit Hume. Like Mason, Biden is standing his ground and has called Trump "an absolute fool."

Unfortunately, there are absolute fools in our midst who are in lockstep with President Trump. They are small in number, but their voices carry and are amplified by the President.

We cannot let these foolish voices become the prevailing view of our public discourse where it concerns COVID-19. They wish to desensitize us about the death toll. To paraphrase Stalin, "One death is a tragedy. One hundred thousand is a statistic."

We cannot accept these attempts at desensitization from the White House down. At least 36,000 of these deaths could have been prevented had the Trump Administration taken appropriate action one week earlier. 

The bottom line is that President Trump didn't take COVID-19 seriously before one American had died of it and he's not taking it seriously now that 100,000 have died of it. This won't change when this number reaches 200,000 or 1 million.

After all, President Trump has an election to win at whatever the cost. We must tell Trump that we are not prepared to pay that price.