Having read threads from @davidfrum and @KeithNHumphreys respectively about the right-wing virtue signaling of not wearing masks and the political/cultural challenges of getting Americans to act like civic-minded adults, there's an unforeseen complication here for Trumpers. /1

Best for Trump is if this pandemic is mostly "over" - in the sense of most people no longer experiencing its social effects - by Nov. Trump would claim that as victory, as any president would.
The irony is that his most fervent supporters are trying to tank that possibility. /2

As Frum points out, Trumpers are in a fix: They can signal their loyalty to the Dear Leader, or they can do things that bring this pandemic to manageable size sooner. But they can't do both. Humphries notes that some people will just defy public health orders and be damned. /3

But here's another twist: Governors may just surrender to the problem, as Humphries describes it, that you cannot create a "no peeing in the pool" section of the pool. They may have no choice but to give up. And then everything that happens is on MAGA world. /4

The problem then becomes not that people like *me* are mad at them, but that their neighbors are mad at them. They could find out in a hurry what it means to be on the wrong side of a 70/30 split in public opinion, and with nobody to protest against with their precious rifles. /5

And you could well have most people deciding to continue to follow some basic sensible social distancing guidance. Then what do the cosplayers do? Order us all at gunpoint to go out to dinner? Threaten us if we don't go to the casino? Good luck with that. /6

By November, with a series of rolling mini-spikes here and there, the ironic outcome is that people who might not have identified the Red Hats as a problem might be holding some grudges about grandma dying and the kids getting COVID toes. /7

Bottom line is that the MUH FREEDOM guys, because they reject temporary hardship, could be building a constituency against themselves, especially among older folks who normally would have been on their side. If they continue on with this juvenile bullshit, I can only hope so.
/8x