Liberal media has been a twitter for days over President Donald Trump’s refusal to wear a medical mask while performing his public duties. NBC news wisely pointed out that Trump, and yours truly, are actually suffering from fragile masculinity. This is not to be confused with the equally serious condition of “white fragility” though obviously the two are intimately related. What we really need right now is for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden to give us a lesson in manhood and put on a medical face mask.
Now, I know what you’re saying, Biden has already been exhibiting the air of manly virtue by hiding in his basement as the Chinese virus sweeps through America. Like Bold Sir Robin of Monty Python fame, Biden knows that what real men do when faced with a problem is run away from it and hope that strong women like the Prime Minister of New Zealand can seize the reigns from pasty, oafish, oxen dudes who ruin everything.
But frankly, we have reached the point where hiding in the basement, as powerful a statement as it is, is not enough. Former Vice President Joe Biden must put on a medical face mask and he must do so right now. First if all, for a candidate credibly accused with sexual assault to engage in the kind of toxic masculinity exhibited by not taking a selfie in a medical face mask is just plain bad politics. But it’s worse than that. Biden is literally killing grandmothers.
It pains me to be the one to say it, but the fact that Joe Biden has not set the proper example by donning a medical face mask is basically murder. He might as well be lining old ladies up against a gas station wall and opening fire like the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. So I ask, where the hell is Joe’s mask?
We expect this kind of irresponsibility from Donald Trump whose concept of masculinity rests somewhere between Hugh Hefner and Don Rickles, but Biden is supposed to be better than that. Look, I get it, the Biden camp is worried that if he wears a mask it might be a bad image. He might look like an old man in a wheelchair sending back soup because it’s not hot enough. But this is about saving freakin lives!
Honestly, this is the least that Joe Biden can do to dismantle the menacing structures of the white male patriarchy. Nobody is asking him to wear a dress or contemplate his pronouns, at least not in his first term. This is such a simple and important gesture that one struggles to comprehend why Biden isn’t in a medical mask for every appearance he makes. People are dying!
And it’s not just Joe Biden, what about Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the greatest political leader since Solon. Has he masterfully guided New York to the highest coronavirus death toll in the world? Yes, but that’s not enough. With the exception of one, ONE, photo of him with a medical mask on face the co-star of the Cuomo and Cuomo Italian comedy hour has mocked the importance of masks by eschewing them, even at press conferences! We are talking about people’s lives!
The good news is that without a doubt, very soon our fair-minded news media will be hounding Joe Biden for his callous and mysoginistic failure to put on a medical mask. Just as they have criticized president Trump they will apply the same standard to his Democratic opponent as they always do.
Put on the mask, Joe. Quit being such a baby. What are you afraid of? That the picture will become iconic? That it might be used in political ads against you? Does that really matter at a time like this? This is a time when America needs leadership, not strong, masculine leadership, but the opposite of that, whatever that is. Put on the mask, Joe. Our lives depend on it.
