General Discussion

and I don’t disagree with you on that part. They are legislators, which means they can’t just write a law that says “NO MASKS” because of all the necessary legitimate exceptions that are going to crop up — and also because they’re not in charge of Congress so they can’t write a law on this anyway. As you say, they’re in a negotiation.

So as usual this is a case of Democratic leaders being bad at politics. Instead of focusing on masks, they should be going much harder on the bigger picture — completely unaccountable, violent, untrained, unidentifiable federal agents roaming the streets injuring people, killing people, and violating people’s Constitutional rights on a daily basis. Really, that should be the only message. Everything else is just details.

At the same time though, were they focusing on masks? That perception has been reinforced by the Huff Post’s negative framing and clickbait headline. I’m pretty sure that Schumer and Jeffries didn’t plan to make this all about masks — they have a lot of other items on the agenda, and all of them are in strong opposition to the current regime’s policies. For example, one of the items is that law enforcement should have to show identification. But people have leaned into the spin and used it to bash Schumer and Jeffries as weak, spineless, cowards, carrying water for Republicans, etc., which I think is unfair.

I guess ultimately I see a difference between someone being a bad politician and someone being a bad person. I think Schumer and Jeffries are as disgusted as we are at the current situation, and I think they are serious about wanting to do something about it — they’re not up there blowing us off and saying that no reforms are necessary.

Unfortunately, their political skills are not up to scratch, which lets us all down — especially with an assist from Huff Post. But if that’s the case, I’m not sure that tearing them down further — for this at least — is helpful.

I hope that makes sense. Thanks for your thoughts.