Democratic candidate Joe Biden has been stuck in his basement all these months and now wants us all to be mandated by law to wear masks.  That's his big idea.

According to CBS News:

"Every single American should be wearing a mask when they're outside for the next three months, at a minimum. Every governor should mandate mandatory mask-wearing," Biden said, suggesting that widespread mask use could save 40,000 lives over the next three months. "Let's institute a mask mandate nationwide starting immediately, and we will save lives."

Where ya been, Joe?

Governors have already been there.  Here in California and in most big-population states, we've been wearing masks for months — in the Walmarts, in the Targets, at the Costcos, to the doctors' office, to the post office, on our walks — the very few places we've been allowed to go, and during that brief period when we could go to the gym and indoor church services.  Masks do do some good, and people generally follow the idea.  So to put that idea out there as if none of us has noticed is rather obnoxious.  Been there, done that.

Yet Joe puts this out as his bright new idea as if no one had ever thought of it before.  Why exactly would Biden's federal mask mandate somehow make things different?  This is old hat stuff by someone who just woke up and smelled the coffee that's gone cold.  He seems to have missed the different gubernatorial mandates tailored to various state needs, as well as the months and months of wearing masks, particularly in big cities.  It's not a panacea, but it has been helpful there.  Yet Biden wants one-size-fits-all and is convinced he can wave the entire problem away with this sweeping diktat.

Here's why it's stupid: we've already begun solving the problem as masks (and many other solutions) have been followed.  Outdoor activities have been positive — church services, beach activity, and if California would just allow it, outdoor school would be great.  Hydroxychloroquine combined with zinc and other adjacent treatments has been a life-saver.  Operation Warp Speed, to develop a vaccine, is on track for a successful year-end launch.  And there are also signs of herd immunity developing.  A lot of us have marveled at the low transmission rate on New York City's packed subways, and many experts think sufficient immunity has come of it.  The latest news is that it doesn't take much for herd immunity to develop.

Yes, new cases are high, but only because more testing is available — lots of undetected cases have been found, often among symptomless young people, which would have otherwise gone away unnoticed.  More important, deaths are down, big-time down, down from April, where deaths peaked at 4,928 on one bad day in that month.  In late July, the last day recorded, they were at 391.  Catching COVID no longer means you are going to die, because almost no one does. 

Yet for Biden, it's still March 2020, and he'd like us all to know he'd handle the coronavirus better than President Trump did with this vast new imposition.  Yes, it's good to wear masks, but only in place where it can do some good.  America has 300 million people, and a rancher in South Dakota where few COVID cases exist anyway is going to need one a lot less than a packed multi-generational house in a Los Angeles tenement or an infirm elderly person living in a nursing home.

And an order that sweeping is also going to get ignored.  We've already seen how spring breakers ignored it.  We've seen how protesters, rioters, and looters ignore it.  We've also seen farm workers working in tight quarters from places with little understanding of viruses ignore it.  And we've seen inner-city black communities where multigenerational families are common and distrust of mostly white authorities handing out edicts is even more common to ignore.  Some of these places do, indeed have more COVID cases. 

Seriously — 300 million people here and police budgets being cut by blue-city governments...how's Biden going to enforce this?  The old dinosaur hasn't worked this out yet.  Let's see how he does when protesters and rioters take to the streets, forgetting their masks.

Is Joe Biden proposing to go after the rioters on mask grounds?  As long as he's got cops out issuing tickets for these mask violations, maybe he can arrest a few for hurling bombs and setting fires.

And for additional idiocy, note that Biden threw out a three-month period for it, as if the "experts" he's consulted have ever been right before.  (Remember the two-week lockdowns?  Funny how they extend.)

First, we weren't supposed to wear masks, then we were, and in response to state orders, most of us complied.  In places where Karens were present, we were scolded on the streets if we didn't.

What most people want is not more masks — we have all had a bellyful of masks, and as Andrea Widburg noted here, some people are getting something called "mask mouth" as a result of their compliance — we want the problem solved and times to go back to normal.

Biden isn't offering that.  He's offering the false promise of that, but he's focused on the power to impose, not the solution, and oh, gosh, it's so old — kind of like him.  When no solution comes, he'll extend the mask mandate forever, in the name of ending all risk.  And as Issues & Insights notes today, it won't stop there.

Not only will it not work, it's a hideous campaign platform -- Joe Biden, candidate of permanent lockdown, March 2020 forever. 

Since, as Robert Conquest noted, everyone's a conservative about things they know best, it is going to bomb with the voters. We all know this mask thing and what it can do very very well. Biden's offering us a lot of day-old bread with nothing between the slices.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of image from Public Domain Pictures, public domain, enhanced with Photoshop.