In his latest act of COVID-19 theater, President Joe Biden tweeted Thursday evening, “The rule is now simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do. The choice is yours.”
His freakishly condescending and out-of-touch messaging is all kinds of wrong. From being impractical to contradicting his own actions to being just plain obnoxious, here’s a list of problems with Biden’s latest bout of Twitter preaching.
1. Biden Has Been Vaccinated For Months and Still Wears a Mask
Biden received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on December 21, 2020, while televised. He received the second shot on January 11, 2021, a few days before his inauguration.
Yet he has continued to wear a mask months after being vaccinated, a move that would seem unnecessary based on his latest comments (and common sense). Vice President Kamala Harris does the same, even though she also received her final vaccine dose in January. Not content with one mask, both have often doubled up even post-vaccination, wearing some combination of a paper surgical mask, an N95 mask, and a cloth one.
Further mask-signaling, President Biden and the first lady were photographed — maskless — hanging out with former President and First Lady Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, who are both in their nineties. It was perfectly appropriate to remove their masks, since they were vaccinated. But when the Bidens walked outside from the Carter home, they both inexplicably donned masks again.
It’s obvious Biden is wearing his mask as a signal, like the Wisconsin bureaucrats who told their employees to wear masks during Zoom calls from home. But it’s signaling more weakness and inconsistency than anything else.
2. His Tone Is Maddeningly Paternalist
“The choice is yours,” Biden says, between getting a vaccine or wearing a mask. No, the choice to get a vaccine or not is mine, period. So is the choice to wear or not wear a mask.
Biden is no stranger to condescension. “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” he told radio host Charlamagne Tha God in May 2020.
Vice President Harris has come off as condescending too, from smirking during the presidential debates to her comments that young people are “stupid” and make “really bad decisions.” Biden’s tweet is only the latest example of the administration’s attitude: that you’re too dumb to make your own decisions and need to be told what to do.
3. His Simplistic Ultimatum Is Impossible to Enforce
For Biden’s simplistic “vaccine or mask” dichotomy to actually be enforceable, he would have to station a vaccine TSA agent at the door of every establishment in America. Want to go to the grocery store? If you’re not in a mask, you better have a vaccine passport handy. Planning to stop at a restaurant to grab lunch? Same thing. Going to church? Better bring your mask or vaccination card. But don’t worry, “the choice is yours.”
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t put it past some in the Biden administration to try such a draconian approach. But it’s utterly impractical and inconsistent with every ounce of freedom or federalism.
Either Biden means to try imposing such insanity on the American people, or plenty of sane unvaccinated Americans will simply ditch the mask and let everyone assume they’re vaccinated. That kind of personal freedom and privacy sounds fine to me, but it shows how silly and ineffective Biden’s ultimatum is.
4. Does This Mean Kids Too?
Biden’s Centers for Disease Control announced Wednesday it has approved the Pfizer vaccine under emergency use authorization for children as young as 12 years old. Does Biden intend to force masks on preteens ad infinitum unless they also vaccinate?
As of April 2021, 277 of coronavirus-related deaths in the United States were of children under the age of 18. While it goes without saying that each of those deaths is tragic, that represents 0.0005 of all coronavirus-related deaths in the United States, or 0.05 percent.
Forcing children to wear masks indefinitely or get vaccinated is deeply foolish, especially this early in the vaccine testing process. Although the vaccine has been given “emergency use authorization,” it is still not fully approved by the Federal Drug Administration. Taking the shot may be well worth it for older Americans who are more at risk, but the potential unknown side effects on fertility, blood clotting, and more make it much less clear for young people.
5. Does This Mean Masks Exempt You From Vaccine Passports?
Fat chance — the Biden administration’s plan for overreach is far more invasive than his “the choice is yours” rhetoric tries to suggest. Back in March, the Biden White House was already working with corporations to develop a “vaccine passport” system.
Don’t let the president’s tweet fool you into thinking even a mask will save you from soon having to show proof of vaccination to fly, attend mass gatherings, and more. If your freedoms as an American citizen aren’t enough to protect from this kind of government micromanagement, a flimsy paper mask won’t do much.