I'm in a big American city, and I remember that until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies.
I remember when there was that controversy about 5G networks interfering with bird migration patterns and meteorology, but as the fringe conspiracy crowd started spinning up crazy theories about how 5G was going to brainwash or sterilize or force-feminize people over the airwaves or whatever it was, most people I knew stopped talking about it, seemed to forget that they had ever thought it concerning. It reminded me of the time people were worried about pollutants causing hormonal changes in indicator species, and then Alex Jones started talking about how "they're turning the frogs gay" and the meaningful version of that discourse vanished too.
I view the same kind of thing as happening here, as well as a lot of other places. It's made me wary of the sport of finding what crazy things my political enemies believe to make fun of them, because it seems like the net effect of this is creating "opposite" erroneous beliefs with no evidence
Maybe because data started showing that masks aren’t reducing infections? Or Gavin Newsome and London Breed partying like rock stars without masks.
Or the Met Gala where only the servants wore masks?
Or the data (from schools,) that show the masks weren’t affecting infection rates?
Or Fauci saying “no” privately? Then yes publicly? Or the insanity of people wearing masks when driving alone in their car? Or running in the woods?
Nothing about mask policy has been sane.