Adopting mask mandates, some GOP governors give up the gospel of personal responsibility

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Wed, 2020-11-18 10:07 — mike kraft

Adopting mask mandates, some GOP governors give up the gospel of personal responsibility The flurry of new rules after President Trump’s loss underscores the pressure he put on red-state governors to spurn experts and downplay the virus. Isaac Stanley-Becker Washington Post

A growing number of Republican governors, including some who had written off mask mandates as unenforceable or unacceptable to freedom-loving Americans, are now requiring people to cover their faces in public — a response to escalating coronavirus outbreaks overwhelming hospitals across the country.

After eight months of preaching personal responsibility in place of mandates, these governors have brought their states in line with much of the world by instituting the simple requirement backed by science but, in the United States, shot through with politics.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who once dismissed mask mandates as “feel good” measures, issued a limited order this week, as her state topped 2,000 coronavirus deaths. The state’s senior U.S. senator, 87-year-old Charles E. Grassley, said Tuesday he tested positive for the virus but reported “feeling good.” And a bipartisan group of Midwestern governors, in a joint video address, stressed that widespread distribution of a vaccine was a long way off and advised their constituents that returning to normal sometime next year first required surviving the holidays.

Among them was Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who backtracked on a sweeping mask mandate earlier this year but recently stepped up enforcement of a statewide order put into place this summer. DeWine on Tuesday also announced a 21-day statewide curfew.

Beyond the Midwest, rules about mask use are tightening in Utah, North Dakota and West Virginia, all of which reported record case counts at least once last week, according to Washington Post data. Other Republican-led states, such as Maryland, are stepping up various restrictions. ...

Associates of some Republican governors who recently instituted mask mandates said the expectation of a more active federal response under Biden is providing cover for state leaders who have feared blowback from lawmakers in their own party, as well as from Trump’s base. Some on the front lines are now pointing to Trump’s electoral defeat as an opportunity for governors in his party to assert a modicum of independence. ...

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