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If Trump loses this fall, a what-if for historians will be “What if his administration had strongly endorsed mask-wearing in February, at the first sign of community spread in the U. S.?”
For all the ink spilled about his tweeting and impeachment and dubious moves like pardoning Roger Stone, it’s conceivable that an emphatic pro-mask message from the feds on day one would have produced a much less severe epidemic in the United States. And the epidemic is the thing that’s blocking his reelection right now. Change that one variable and he’s probably a slight underdog against Biden at worst, possibly even a slight favorite depending on how well the economy weathered the first, much smaller wave of COVID in the “universal masks” scenario.
The failure of the president’s experts — starting with Jerome Adams but including Fauci (who was also bearish on masks early) and of course the CDC — may have doomed Trump to defeat in November more so than anything the president himself has said or done.
But that hypothetical may be too charitable to him. Even if Adams, Fauci, etc, had gone all-in on masks early, it’s hard to imagine Trump himself going along. All of the now familiar objections to mask-wearing would have remained: They’re unmanly, they’re a politically correct form of “social control,” they’re a tacit admission that the virus is a serious threat rather than “just the flu.” It took until July 11, with his polling in the toilet and a second wave of the disease raging through battleground states, for POTUS to finally agree to be photographed wearing one and only then during a visit to a hospital.
In fact, at Trump campaign headquarters, they’re basically anathema even now.
Facing no threat of enforcement, the Trump campaign has continued to make its own rules on coronavirus protections, said the individuals, who requested anonymity to speak freely. For instance, staff have been told to wear masks outside the office, in case they’re spotted by reporters, but they’ve been instructed that it’s acceptable to remove them in the office, the individuals said, adding that staff also publicly joke about the risk of coronavirus and play down the pandemic’s threat.
