Pence's "I Don't Care Do You?" Mask Moment - It Was a Reckless Choice, Not a Mistake
April 29th 2020
Mike Pence (Gage Skidmore)
By bluedogsd (of the Daily Kos community)
In June of 2018 former semi-naked model and current FLOTUS left the confines of the White House wearing a coat with the words “I Don’t Care Do You” boldly printed across the entire back of the jacket and the intelligent people of the US dropped their jaws in horror. In fact, Mrs. Trump wasn’t simply out for any old day in a coat with a strange message, she was actually on her way to visit facilities where immigrant children were being kept in cages.
As one would imagine there was a roar of shock and horror because of how incredibly tone deaf and obnoxious this would seem.
Of course this was met with a series of mixed messages from the White House. First, She just didn’t realize, then she was making a statement about the media and …. blah, blah,blah.
The least obnoxious of these” (That she didn’t realize) is literally impossible. She is fashion obsessed woman with a many year career in modeling and image generating. What she looks like and what she wears is 100% of who she is. It’s an insult to our collective intelligence to say that Melania doesn’t have 100% control and understanding of everything that she wears.
In some world it may have been said that her English is so poor that she didn’t understand the words which would actually be a more plausible excuse. I’m not here to take cheap shots at Melania though so I will fully agree that her English is clearly to the capacity to understand this rudimentary and fundamentally rude sentence.
There is really nothing to ponder. She knew what she is wearing, she knew what the words meant and she knew where she was going. She did it on purpose.
I bring all of this back today because today the Vice President made a statement. Everyone is talking about it but they are talking about it in the context that it was somehow pompous or it was feeling privileged. That the lack of wearing a mask was perhaps in the Trumpian mold of being so image obsessed and a mask looking “Weird” (which it no longer does at all since it’s being donned by politicians in many places world wide).
Here is my contention. He did it on purpose. He had to.
We know he was told it was required. Everyone else around him was wearing them. His choice was the same choice as Melania. Strip all of the old excuses away. This was done not as an absence of judgement, not as an oversight.
This action was a prescribed selection of choice. It was a choice and a very forceful one.
It can not be excused. In fact, the truth is that in the Obama administration or maybe even in the Bush admin or other previous Presidents who would have at least partially or fully agreed with science — the wearing of the mask should have been the photo op . In this time of Corona, leading by example actually should include wearing of a mask to help people understand that it’s the correct and good thing to do even if it feels awkward at first.
These people know this. Just as Melania purposefully wore that jacket, Mike Pence purposefully did not put on a mask. They know that the cameras are there, they know that this is for the world to see. They make statements in this fashion and they do it for a living. And, just to note, it’s in no way just them that does photo-ops — it’s a statement that when photo ops happen that the “oops” moments aren’t like this.
It is my contention that it is beyond arguable. He was told by the hospital in no small words that it was required. It wasn’t laziness, it wasn’t stupidity, it wasn’t’ ego, it wasn’t any of this.
Of course the WH will backpedal the whole event but it actually was a photo-op.
It was a photo-op that the virus is “not a big deal”. It’s a photo op that “Healthy people like Mike Pence is, you know, like you are, like the protesters are don’t need a mask”.
Melania was telling people she didn’t care. Mike Pence was telling people that they virus isn’t a big deal — which is worse than any other misinterpretation possible.
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Posted with permission