The Biden twists and turns on masking Americans

 Glenn Reynolds:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest confused pronouncement about masks is another blow to the embattled agency, whose track record hasn’t been exactly brilliant.

For months, the CDC has married a god-awful communications strategy with a determination to cater to the most irrational whims of the paranoid, triple-masking urban gentry: the whims of the archetypical Karen, in other words.

The latest stutter-step is an embarrassment for the public health establishment and for a Team Biden left trying to explain what the CDC meant. But there’s also an opportunity here for Republicans heading into the 2022 election: The GOP should run as the anti-lockdown party — the anti-Karen party.

A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that broad swaths of America are skeptical of the lockdown response to the pandemic. What’s most interesting is that the skepticism is highest among groups that are key Democratic constituencies.

Overall, a majority of voters — 55 percent — agree that “despite good intentions, shutting down businesses and locking down society did more harm than good.” Only 38 percent disagree, with the rest unsure.

But the really interesting part is the racial breakdown: White Democrats reject the idea that lockdowns did more harm than good by a 30-plus-point margin. Nonwhite Democrats, on the other hand, are evenly divided.

The divide widens on the question of whether government officials will hold on to too much power in the future: 62 percent of voters say yes. Nearly two-thirds of white Democrats disagree. But note well: By a whopping 64-27 margin, black Democrats fear that officials will abuse their vast new powers.
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Perhaps that explains the Democrats’ race obsession in recent years. As the Democratic Party becomes a party of the white metropolitan class and its government-dependent clients, the GOP has emerged as a multiracial party of the working class. Democrats no doubt hope that sharpening racial divisions will help slow that process, but former President Donald Trump did alarmingly well with minorities, from Dems’ point of view.

There is a great deal of pent-up frustration and resentment over the inconvenience, the loss of freedom and the general climate of hectoring that the government’s pandemic response has created. It’s irritating to be lectured by officials who claim to be smarter than you. It’s infuriating to be lectured by government officials who claim to be smarter than you — but clearly aren’t.
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It wasn't that long ago that Biden said the lifting of masking requirements in Texas was "Neanderthal thinking."  When it proved not to be the case and actually fewer people came down with the virus the Biden team had to come up with a new rationale for abusing power and they latched onto the less-lethal Delta variant as an excuse.

See, also:

White House, Dems push for new mask mandates even though infection data varies widely across US

And:

Gottlieb, Wen: CDC leak shows the vaccinated aren't the big Delta risk

And:

Wait, That’s the Risk of Symptomatic Infection That Has the CDC So Worried?