I make a point of getting on mailing lists used by my political antagonists so as to keep an eye on them.  Yesterday, I got one from a group called Stop-Republicans.org that bills itself as "an accountability campaign of Progressive Turnout Project...  a grassroots-funded effort dedicated to resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump's radical right-wing legacy."

It turns out that their latest way to "stop Republicans" is "to pledge to wear a mask for the rest of the year"!

Screen grab from email.

Are they replacing the donkey as their symbol?

Do they want those making the pledge to wear just one mask?  Why not two or three, as St. Fauci has at times recommended?

Why wear a mask for the rest of the year?  What happens on January 1, 2022?  With cases and deaths declining, and with the free states doing at least as well as the lockdown states with mask mandates, why emphasize mask-wearing now?

With mask mandates ending, this pledge to a political group makes masks purely political:

While they state that "[w]earing a mask is the best way to slow the spread of COVID-19 and protect our fellow Americans," they present no scientific evidence that this is true, and they implicitly are rejecting vaccinations as the "best way" to project against the spread of COVID.

Update: What about the risks of wearing masks?  See: "Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis" from the NIH:

Abstract:

Many countries across the globe utilized medical and non-medical facemasks as non-pharmaceutical intervention for reducing the transmission and infectivity of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Although, scientific evidence supporting facemasks' efficacy is lacking, adverse physiological, psychological and health effects are established. Is has been hypothesized that facemasks have compromised safety and efficacy profile and should be avoided from use. The current article comprehensively summarizes scientific evidences with respect to wearing facemasks in the COVID-19 era, providing prosper information for public health and decisions making.

It is clear, especially from the last line on the graphic above that mask-wearing now has become a political act, not a matter of public health, at least as far as this activist group is concerned.

Update: Did this man sign the pledge?

Presented without comment. pic.twitter.com/QA2MrdRgBK

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) April 15, 2021

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