Many Missouri House Democrats didn’t bother with masks — wearing one is just ‘too tough’
We’ve been giving Republican officials many well deserved whacks for failing to wear masks to protect others from COVID-19. That behavior is dangerous, selfish and shows a lack of leadership.
Well, guess what? Many Democrats in the Missouri House also went increasingly maskless during the legislative session that ended last Friday, and that too was dangerous and selfish. They also revealed just a big hole in the ground where their example-setting and brain-using were supposed to be.
Photos posted on the public Missouri House Democrats Facebook page show members on and off the floor with masks either nowhere to be seen or worn uselessly around their necks.
Among the bare-faced in photographs or video taken during this session are Democratic state Reps. Jon Carpenter and Joe Runions of Kansas City; Tracy McCreery of St. Louis County; Raychel Proudie of Ferguson; Maria Chappelle-Nadal of University City; and Gina Mitten of St. Louis. There’s a video clip of Minority Floor Leader Crystal Quade, of Springfield, masklessly testifying on the last day of the session about the failure to take action on COVID-19. Runions in particular ought to know better since he already had COVID-19, was hospitalized and on a ventilator.
Carpenter said he wore his 99% of the time, “except when I was drinking water or coffee or taking a deep breath,” and saw almost all other Democratic colleagues doing the same.
But one Democratic House member said that by the end of the three-week session, discipline among colleagues on his own side of the aisle had slipped to the point that he was getting nightly texts along the lines of “Hey, 15 of us are having dinner, come join us!”
“It was frustrating to see,” he said, but people just got used to being around each other and fell back into familiar habits. “And we really won’t be sure until the end of next week if we spread it.”
Another Democratic House member put it this way: “It started off as a show for both” Democrats and Republicans, “and ended as a show for both,” with more Democrats still wearing masks on the floor but discarding them off the floor. “Nobody was wearing one in the lounge.”
Why? “It’s too tough” to do that while working in close proximity for 12 hours a day. “I’ll be honest; I let mine slip pretty early. Democrats started out taking it seriously, but it fell apart on both sides. We tried to keep the show going as long as possible. But wearing the mask doesn’t do any good if you’re 3 feet away from someone anyway.”
Not true; that’s when you and they need it most. A for candor, E for effort.
What’s “too tough” is struggling to breathe when you feel like your lungs are on fire, or having to tell a family member that the person they loved most in this world isn’t in this world anymore because of this pandemic. Or being that family member. Or being someone who is pretty sure he passed on the coronavirus to a loved one who then died of COVID-19. Or at the end of every long day of fighting COVID-19 as a health care provider, worrying that you’re taking the virus home with you. Or not feeling like you can go home for that reason.
Democrats don’t even have the excuse of wanting to emulate the president, or of doubting the science; they’re just being lazy and self-indulgent in a way that could cost others their lives. Again, we wear masks to protect others, and doing so is a selfless act. That it doesn’t offer 100% protection from the virus doesn’t mean it’s morally optional.
One “ardent holdout” who never seemed to let her mask drop, one of her fellow House Democrats said, was Deb Lavender of Kirkwood. “She took it seriously and was kind of an outlier.”
That others we’d like to think of as leaders, too, are so heedless is beyond discouraging.
And again, too, here’s Kansas City public health director, Dr. Rex Archer, speaking not just about Democrats and Republicans but every one of us still breathing: “Less than 1% of folks should be going out in public without a mask” since as many as half of all coronavirus carriers never show any symptoms. “If both parties are wearing masks, it drastically reduces what’s airborne.”
A study in Hong Kong found that it could cut the transmission of COVID-19 by as much as 75%. So “too tough,” no.
This is not a show, but a pandemic that has already claimed the lives of 661 in Missouri, 93,061 in the United States and more than 320,000 in the world.
That this isn’t still enough to keep you from partying with colleagues in Jefferson City says a lot about your judgment, none of it good.