Hey protester, no mask? Go play in the NFL without a helmet

People are stupid.

Case in point: a CNN article headlined “Face masks have become America's new fault line.”

Here’s the stupid part: Many of the people who want to go out in public are the ones refusing to wear the masks. I find this downright mystifying. There’s no argument that coronavirus is dangerous, and that you can catch it through the air. So why would people who want to go out more often be the same ones who not wearing masks?

For a long time, the CDC was, inexplicably, telling people not to wear masks — even though this was standard operating procedure during the Spanish flu of 1918, and it’s just common sense that a barrier would lower the risk of contracting it.

The CDC finally changed this “guidance” to encourage masks April 3, more than a month after the crisis came to light. Better late than never, I suppose, except for the thousands who became infected during that month. Maybe the CDC got tired of hearing people like me wonder why moms everywhere tell their kids to cover their mouths when they cough, but the CDC somehow didn’t believe a barrier would be effective.

Bizarre.

Even more bizarre, however, is the fact that those who want to loosen stay-at-home restrictions are the same ones flouting the CDC’s current, rational device by refusing to wear face masks.

Has the COVID-19 mess cost you money, maybe even your job? I get why you’re upset. Sick of staying at home all the time? Stir crazy? I get that, too.

But if you do go out, why the hell don’t you wear a mask? Refusing to wear a mask isn’t a protest. It’s just plain stupid.

And reckless. Why not go walking around naked while you’re at it. Makes just as much sense in times like these.

Imagine if the NFL decided to protest a governor’s orders not to play football games by telling its players to suit up anyway. “But, oh yeah, don’t wear a helmet. We’re going to play without ’em to protest the government trying to tell us what to do. What’s that? You’re afraid you might get a concussion? Too bad. Suck it up.”

Except there’s a difference: Concussions aren’t contagious.

Protest, but wear a mask

If I wanted to defy the government and go out on some nonessential errand, that’s precisely when I would wear a mask. The mask has nothing to do with some government edict. It has everything to do with not getting sick.

It wouldn’t be the government infecting me if I caught COVID-19. It would be the stinkin’ virus. And that virus wouldn’t give even half a damn whether I was protesting or not.

Protester: “I’ll show the government!”

Virus: “I’ll show that protester! Hehehehe!”

Some people resent being told what to do. I get that, too. But rebelling against arbitrary authority is one thing; rebelling against common sense is another. If the government is telling you to do something that actually makes sense, defiance is not only pointless, it’s (I’ll use that word again) stupid. The NFL does, in fact, insist that players wear helmets. But you don’t see players trying to take the field without them just because they don’t like being told what to do.

That’s childish. And stupid.

If you’re stupid enough to let yourself get infected while engaging in one of these protests, that’s on you. No sympathy here, dude. Problem is, you might infect someone else, and that’s not just stupid, it’s gross negligence.

In fact, people like you are part of the reason I’d be wearing a mask in public, whether or not the government required it.

If you can’t comprehend that I’d be protecting myself, just look at it as a form of protest.

A protest against your stupidity.

This guy’s not stupid. He just had his helmet knocked off. Protesters wearing masks don’t have that excuse. They’re not going to get a concussion, but are they brain damaged?

Trump, coronavirus expose a flawed definition of leadership

What is leadership?

Apparently, it’s where Donald Trump earns his highest marks from American voters in a recent AP-NORC Center poll.

According to the poll half of Americans say the term “strong leader” is a very good or moderately good description of Trump.

But Trump’s idea of a strong leader appears to be someone who does what he wants, when he wants. That’s what outright and de facto dictators like Vladimir Putin (Russia), Kim Jong Un (South Korea) and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkey) do. Trump has praised all three. Their approach appeals not only to Trump, but to supporters who hate red tape, bureaucracy and anything else that limits them from doing ... well, whatever they want to do.

This is their concept of liberty or freedom. It had absolutely nothing to do with the concept of representative democracy. This system, under which we’re supposed to operate, is designed to protect everyone’s freedom by balancing the rights of some interests against those of competing (or opposing) interests.

In a time of political polarization, however, those “opposing interests” aren’t viewed as checks and balances, they’re seen as “evil” and “the enemy.”

Freedom doesn’t mean freedom for everyone. It means, “freedom for me to do whatever I want, and to hell with everyone else.”

Silencing those who disagree

That’s where the whole system breaks down, because the minute we see the opposition in that light, we dismiss their point of view and even their right to express that point of view. That undermines one of the core values we claim to hold — it’s even in the Constitution: freedom of speech and expression.

It’s no coincidence that dictators seek to limit speech and rein in the expression. In an outright dictatorship, it’s done by arresting people, sending them to gulags, confiscating their property, and torturing them. Because our system still has some checks and balances in place, Trump does it by demeaning his opponents through name-calling and seeking to discredit the media (who, sadly, don’t really need much help).

There’s that term “checks and balances” again. Trump doesn’t like them, and neither do people who want to get things done quickly.

Damn the red tape, full speed ahead.

Of course, they’re an intrinsic part of our constitutional system, because the people who wrote that Constitution didn’t want a dictator.

The power of disinformation

He may not be able to do whatever he wants, but he tries. He issued more executive orders during the first three years of his presidency than Barack Obama, George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. But checks and balances can’t keep him from saying whatever he wants, and that can be nearly as damaging.

Trump doesn’t agree.

The number of lies he’s told since being in office has been well-documented. But the nature of those lies, at times, makes them even more dangerous, especially in times of crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. Hydroxychloroquine can work on coronavirus. Oh, not so much? Well, try injecting bleach? Sure, that’ll do the trick.

The thing is, even though Trump can’t do everything he wants, he still thinks he’s knows more than scientists, generals, business experts ... just about anyone about just about anything.

No matter how absurd his claims might be, no matter how often he contradicts science (or even his own previous statements), it doesn’t matter. Why? Because studies have shown that “confidence, even when unjustified, leads to higher social status.” Even when it’s bullshit, people believe it.

Trump realizes this, and acts on it. In doing so, he’s tapped into the same psychology used by despots for centuries: Fake it until you make it, because even if you never make it on your merits, you’ll eventually convince people that you have. So you will. That’s how a con man operates — how someone who has repeatedly failed at business gets elected, simply because he says he’s a successful businessman.

Bias toward tyranny?

But there’s more to it than this. Apparently, we in the U.S. are particularly prone to swallowing this kind of B.S. — despite our constitutional separation of powers, and despite the fact that we broke from England because we have a distaste for tyranny.

But do we, really?

A Harvard Business Review analysis presents an alternative, and disturbing conclusion.

The analysis asks what constitutes leadership. In response, it points out that studies have shown a dichotomy, depending on where you live. Places like East Asia and Latin America value a “synchronized leader” who builds consensus, then follows through. Northern European nations and their former colonies (including the U.S.), by contrast, value “opportunistic leaders” who are “more or less individualistic” and “thrive on ambiguity.”

Sounds like a synonym for “self-serving egotists” who “like to have their cake and eat it, too.”

Not a pretty picture.

Another dichotomy: Some nations prefer “straight-shooting” leaders who get straight to the point, while others prefer “diplomatic” leaders who “continually gauge audience reactions.”

The missing piece

What’s missing in all this is one key component: Facts.

The ability to quickly gather, interpret and effectively act on those facts is what makes an effective leader. Not polls, not spin, not self-aggrandizement. A leader is, very simply, someone who was out front. The first person to perceive a problem, and to grasp both its nature and scope. The person most capable of formulating a response, making sure it’s implemented, and ensuring it’s effective.

This has nothing to do with:

• Pretending to know everything about everything, when you really don’t. This can lead to catastrophic mistakes, especially during times of crisis. The Donald Trump method.

• “Continually gauging audience reactions,” which is just another term for “governing by polls.” This can lead to popular but equally flawed conclusions, because they’re based on popularity contests. The Bill Clinton method.

Either way, the facts are conveniently left out of the equation. In the first case, decisions are based not on facts but on one person’s (self-serving) opinion. In the second, decisions are based not on facts, but on public opinion. The latter is at least more democratic, but as the founders recognized, public opinion can lead to conclusions that are just as faulty as a dictator’s — which is why they wrote the Constitution.

Decisiveness is not leadership

Why does Trump get higher marks as a leader than he does for anything else?

Because we’re mistaking decisiveness for leadership. You can be decisive about anything. You can be hell-bent on jumping off a cliff into a pile of quicksand with an anvil tied around your neck. That’s decisive. But it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. And it doesn’t make you a leader — unless your followers are a bunch of mindless lemmings.

True leadership requires much more than being decisive. It requires being decisive in the right ways (effectiveness) for the right reasons (reliable information). Trump is neither. The COVID-19 crisis has further exposed him as an ineffective leader who makes decisions based on what he wants to believe, rather than the facts. He leaves scientists to try to clean up his mess, then blames them when he’s wrecked things beyond repair.

That says something about him, and it says a lot more those of us who consider him a strong leader.

He’s anything but.  

The big coronavirus lie: "We're all in this together"

“We’re all in this together.”

Of all the insulting, disturbing pieces of propaganda to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, this has to rank near the top.

It’s become a mantra of sorts, parroted alongside the ever popular “this virus doesn’t discriminate.”

“We’re all in this together” isn’t a rallying cry. It’s a means of control disguised as a soothing balm. It’s false reassurance that urges us to follow bad advice, like not wearing masks, and distracts us from the harsh reality: This pandemic is making the health and economic gaps between us grow wider, not narrower.

The person who says, with a plastered-on smile, “We’re all in this together” doesn’t give you a choice. He’s not pressuring or shaming you into conformity, he’s outright assuming it. You’re already “in this.” You can’t decide you don’t want any part of it because, we’re told, the virus doesn’t discriminate, and we’re all in the same boat.

But, in fact, the opposite is true. The virus does discriminate. And, worse, so do we.

The virus discriminates by affecting people with chronic health conditions more than those without them. It discriminates by hitting the elderly far harder than the young. Some geographic regions are harder hit. There’s even research that suggests people with certain blood types are more susceptible. Long story short: We are most certainly not in this together, even from the virus’ perspective.

And we make things worse by discriminating ourselves, as a society. Some people are being forced to choose between their health and their livelihoods, while others are not. The laid-off blue-collar worker who struggles to keep the heat on while self-isolating in a studio apartment is not “in this together” with the independently wealthy jet-setter who doesn’t have to work and can hole up in a six-bedroom, 3.5-bath McMansion.

“We’re all in this together” creates a false sense of buy-in, urging us to ignore the fact that this pandemic affects individuals very differently. In fact, the pandemic has become an excuse to spew propaganda aimed at brushing other forms of suffering under the rug. If “we’re all in this together,” suddenly no one has a right to complain if they can’t afford the rent or can’t find the money to feed their family, because the virus becomes the only valid concern.

“Be thankful you don’t have the virus,” is the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) rejoinder. “If celebrities and politicians are getting it, you’re the lucky one. What do you have to gripe about?”

Yes, some celebrities have gotten sick. Some have died. But these deaths get reported. Meanwhile, thousands of non-celebrities die in anonymity and are left as faceless statistics, except to the few who know and love them. The news reports celebrity deaths, with faces and biographies. Everyone else is just a number. Clinical and impersonal. So it seems like celebrities are being hit as hard (or harder) than everyone else, when in fact, the opposite is true.

Here’s the thing: People at the lower end of the economic spectrum — those non-celebrities whose names are never mentioned — are 10 percent likelier to suffer from a chronic health condition than anyone else. And they’re less likely to seek treatment for it, because they can’t afford it. Without that care, chronic health problems get worse. And remember: People with chronic health problems are being hit harder by COVID-19.

Some workers have paid sick leave, others — generally those in low-paying jobs — don’t. NBA players earning millions a year got tested for the virus quickly, even if they showed no symptoms, while ordinary factory workers, schoolteachers and truck drivers who were obviously sick had to wait.

If you think “we’re all in this together,” think again. We’re not. In the midst of the virus, no one’s talking about the wealth gap or the individual cost of health care anymore, but that doesn’t mean those problems have gone away. The virus has actually made them worse. We’re even less “in this together” than we were before. Far from being the great equalizer, the pandemic has widened the chasm between the haves and have nots that had been growing on its own for decades, and now that same pandemic has become an excuse to ignore it.

Under the false premise that “we’re all in this together.”

That’s like saying plantation owners and slaves were “all in this together” because both were part of the same cruel and dysfunctional economic system in the antebellum South. Or saying the worker who earns minimum wage and company executives who earn millions are “all in this together” because the same firm supports them both. Yet the worker can get laid off at the drop of a hat, while the fired executive gets a cushy buyout and, probably, another gig when some headhunter comes calling.

Yes, the virus discriminates, and yes, so do we. We can stop both kinds of discrimination by focusing on protecting our most vulnerable — to the disease and to economic hardship. In many cases, they’re the same people. But if we continue to turn a blind eye because we believe the false narrative that everyone’s in the same boat, more and more life rafts will keep sinking. And all the while, the privileged few keep will keep sailing blithely along in their luxury yachts, oblivious to the storm that’s wrecking everything around them.