Thread by @davidfrum

Plainly, it makes no logical sense to say

a) I want to reopen the economy fast

but also

b) I oppose the safety measures - including masks - that enable fast re-opening. 1/x

Yet many people are saying exactly that.

They must have some reason more powerful than logic - and they do.

2/x

The mask blazons right across the face: "The Trump administration failed. Massively. They said they had this virus under control. Instead, it raged so far out of control that we've had to remake our way of life."

The mask strings an accusation from ear to ear. 3/x

You can see why people who previously used their mouths to hail Trump would not wish to cover their mouths with a symbol of his failure. It's a matter of identity, a MAGA hat in reverse. 4/x

The trouble is that by rejecting the hated symbol of Trump failure, they risk aggravating the reality of that failure: another virus spike, even tighter lockdowns.

They have to choose between symbols and realities. 5/x

People are meaning-craving animals. Symbols communicating meaning. Very understandably, many, many Trump supporters interpret the mask to mean, "I was wrong."

Which is true. They were wrong, and that's what it does mean. 6/x

That in turn means it's very unlikely that we will achieve the voluntary social compliance required to make masking effective. (80% is the figure I hear a lot, I have no idea whether it is correct).

So either local police forces must write a lot of $50 tickets, or ... 7/x

... or we have to face, as argued in the thread that follows this one, that very deep forces in US society condemn Americans to a future in which many, many people will get sick and die in ways easy to prevent. 8/x

As Harvard's @maya_sen has written, "Anyone who thinks that Americans won’t stomach a daily drip of preventable deaths hasn’t been following gun control debates." 9/x

Anyway, here's the promised more lucid statement of what I tried to write above.

https://twitter.com/KeithNHumphreys/status/1259828752516706304