see all these anti-maskers, and wonder if it's more of a desired perception/narrative than reality. It's been incredibly rare to see anyone here in my area of VA without a mask on indoors, unless they're at a table eating. No argument that Trump did a horrible job with messaging, and should've used his bully pulpit to be more of an advocate for common sense measures, but I don't recall him ever telling people not to wear masks. Mocking Biden for the size of his, while standing alone and nowhere close to anyone (which is how he does politics just like calling out Low Energy Jeb!, Lyin Ted, or Crooked Hillary) and mentioning studies that questioned the effectiveness of masks, sure, but not telling you not to wear one, or even that wearing one "makes you look foolish" (even though admittedly it does if you're in a car by yourself).

And I agree completely that pushing things as voluntary and just good ideas or the right thing to do is the more effective approach (and that Trump should've done that). Mandates, even more so when done in the monumentally stupid way our Gov did, will inherently lead to at least a segment of the populace that will rebel just because "you can't make me!".

TBH that wasn't really even the point of my post, which was the shifting of the narrative from this in the MSM, to Gov Cuomo, to Mayor Lightfoot, and even our own Gov now trying to push reluctant school systems to open faster, after having spent most of 2020 being some of the staunchest advocates for lockdowns.