“In a move that escalated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis fight over mask mandates,” the governor threatened Monday “to withhold the salaries of superintendents and school board members who disregard the governor’s executive order prohibiting mask mandates for school districts,” CNN reported on August 9, 2021 (story here).
DeSantis has claimed he’s protecting “parents’ rights.”
“I think the fairest thing to do is just say let parents make the decisions,” DeSantis said last week.
Actually, that’s extremely unfair to parents who want to protect their kids from the children of the ignoramuses DeSantis panders to.
DeSantis, too, is an ignoramus. He doesn’t understand the purpose of masks, which experts have called the most effective tool we have to fight the spread of coronavirus. The main function and efficacy of masks is not protecting the wearer from others, but protecting others from the wearer.
If DeSantis gets his way (his executive order is being challenged in court), every unmasked child in Florida schools will put all the other children in the same classrooms and hallways in danger. That’s not fair to those children or their families.
He’s making a high-stakes gamble. He’s counting on this stunt to propel him to the 2024 GOP nomination president. But that could blow up in his face if the Delta variant already dramatically surging in his state results in a high rate of hospitalizations and deaths among Florida children. He has to run for re-election in Florida next year, and a misjudgment of this magnitude could cost him the office he now holds. That would greatly weaken his national prospects.
Meanwhile, if I were a Florida parent, I would pull my children from any school that doesn’t have a mandatory mask policy.
Photo: If you run this risk for your child, you’re a crummy parent; if you’d impose this risk on someone else’s child, you’re a crummy voter