Mask-wearing associated with intelligence
When you consistently place your chips on the science square, you win almost every time. Next time you’re called a “libtard” for wearing a surgical or N95 mask in public, it turns out it’s not only because conservatives are too limited to come up with an original disparagement besides “libtard” when left to themselves, it’s also because they’re stupid. That’s right, science has linked lower cognitive ability to non-compliance with social distancing guidelines. You don’t have to tell them, though, you can just show them the study that proves it.
According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, research suggests that working memory, higher and more fluid intelligence and agreeableness are positively correlated with engaging in social distancing and other guidelines designed to keep people safe during the pandemic. Therefore people who lack those qualities — people who tend to be more cognitively limited — also tend to ignore the guidelines.
I suppose that’s just another way to say it’s smart to be smart. But isn’t it so much nicer when we who populate the left side of the political spectrum are told time and time again that we’re the smart ones by the people who count — the scientists? Scientists back us up on global warming, they back us up on the real cause for the global pandemic and now they back us up on why social distancing, mask-wearing and hand washing remains important. No wonder Republicans hate science so much.
Donald Trump is finally coming around to the idea that he is going to have to wear a mask. The child-raping murderer finally figured out that it’s the right thing to do. He was slow to figure it out because he’s stupid, and so are his followers. It was a humiliation he could have avoided if he could see clearly what the rest of us who are not so limited by nature could see in our sleep. Once again the “stable genius” has proven that he’s a buffoon, and his followers are buffoons for following him.
Given his foolish intransigence, his final begrudging admission that there’s a “time and place” for mask wearing after all has the ring of weakness and defeat to it. Don’t get me wrong, the minute he started wearing a mask it meant lives would be saved. He is, after all, President of the United States, and that carries influence. But he certainly doesn’t deserve a medal for realising what he should have realised months ago. I suspect it’s also a measure of his political desperation. On some level he knows he’s going to get slaughtered in November.
There are a million reasons why Donald Trump is unfit for the office of the president of the United States. This has been another one. Let’s all be smart. Let’s all wear masks in public, practice social distancing, wash our hands and stay safe. And, above all, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, let’s overwhelmingly defeat that child-raping, murdering bastard on November the third.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.