Finally, some Republicans are advocating masks

Finally, I think some, not all, Republicans are changing their tunes about masks. Fox and Friends have recently touted the need for wearing the masks. I believe Sean Hannity said something about wearing masks. Maybe even Tucker Carlson. None other than the Grim Reaper (or is he still Moscow Mitch?), Mitch McConnell, has said we should wear the masks.

It’s about time that voices are rising about the need for wearing masks.

But the Republicans and conservative news media are still not out of the woods yet in regards to their role in this fiasco. They should have been ringing the warning bell many months ago instead of saying the “coronavirus is a hoax”, “the coronavirus warnings an exaggeration”, “a liberal thing to bring down the president”. Now may be a bit too late to change their tune to save some lives. We’ll probably see a lot of needless deaths and they will blamed for this mess because they chose to not be a leader; they have abdicated their leadership role.

But it’s better late than never. Now they should repeat loudly and often about the need for masks. They need to be vociferous about it. Just saying it once is not enough because they have done so much damage. Repeat the warning loudly day after day until the people start to get how serious the crisis is. Say your mea culpas while you’re at it. Do this every day, over and over, loudly and urgently.

Bravo to the governor of Texas Greg Abbott for finally instituting an executive order requiring masks and for admitting that Texas may have re-opened too quickly. That takes a lot of courage to admit mistakes. We all make mistakes and the first step in fixing things is admitting your error.

Bravo to the governor of Arizona Doug Ducey for allowing mask mandates.

I’m waiting for other Republican governors and officials to join in and tell the American people to at least wear the masks and to practice social distancing.

I hope that as the number of cases rise, more and more Republicans start to say, “Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to wear a mask.” The sooner the better. We might still have to go into shut down, which would be longer and worse than the first time around, with very bad consequences for our overall economy but we would be addressing our health. It’s probably too late for the economy but maybe we can save some lives. Today would be better than tomorrow, tomorrow would be better than the next day, this week better than next week.