The summer swelter in Philadelphia had elite snowflakes on the run. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton all fled that August of 1793 as yellow fever swept through that early capital of revolutionary America.
The Continental Congress wasn’t in session, but those founding fathers were on the scene as a contagion they didn’t have the scientific background to understand began killing 200 Philadelphians a day. Our founding fathers understood enough, however, to get out of the virus’ way. They left the city and worked remotely to keep themselves healthy and prevent their presence from making a bad situation worse.
Snowflakes?
Leaders.
Perhaps the most disturbing development of our current pandemic is the laughable posturing over face masks and social distancing. Social media offers up a cauldron of defiance where latter-day Patrick Henrys exclaim their right to breathe upon whomever they want. The mask is a flag of surrender, a negation of rugged individualism, an emasculating collapse into the muddiest puddles of public cuckoldry. Real men, burly and thick-gutted, don’t wear masks, and they don’t social distance. They rub up close to one another, with no fear of one another’s hot breath swirling around them. They won’t cut and run like Washington carrying the young nation on his shoulders towards independence; they’ll face the danger and line up for the boat parade once they can get enough ice for the beer coolers. That’s what it means to be a real American.
They’re not entirely to blame, of course. The president rage-tweeting from the White House residence drives the message: masks are about freedom, about choice, about having the guts to ignore all that we now know about contagion and roll your eyes when eggheads try to explain it. For whatever demented insecurities lurk wrapped in seven decades of undigested Big Macs, a mature response is too much to ask. The current president is Washington’s opposite in every possible way.
That’s no surprise. Polling today and history tomorrow will record the staggering consensus reached about executive branch ineptitude. The more pernicious factor is the followers found down the block in Congress. Toxic Trumpians who refuse masks, social distancing, and Covid tests for no other reason than that recklessness suits their interests.
Florida congressman Matt Gaetz wore a gas mask on the floor of the House of Representatives in the early days of the pandemic and immediately tweeted out the image as a fund-raising appeal; Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina refused to get a Covid test before showing up to a debate because he didn’t want to risk a positive result sidelining him from Supreme Court confirmation hearings; elected Republicans keep showing up maskless at White House political events where the spirit of winning is infectious and the infection itself is winning.
The posturing they do manage to strike rings murderously hollow. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he hasn’t been to the White House since August because nobody there seemed to be taking Covid seriously. He said this in October, three months after deciding concern for his own health was more important than anyone else’s. Certainly for the majority leader, leadership itself is just a mask.
Leaders prioritize the public. They set a good example and create the space for bringing along even people hesitant to comply. Leaders lead. That’s the job. Nobody expects today’s officeholders to be reincarnated Washingtons. At a minimum, though, they have to show that they care about anyone other than themselves.
Not a single Republican deserves re-election this year.
Not one.
Doug Parker
Port Washington
