Greg Abbott Turning All-Time Achievement
into Legacy Stain with Pandering on Masks

Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside
March 7, 2021

Governor Greg Abbott cancelled a culture that he'd suffered substantially trying to build when he overturned the statewide mask mandate this week in a move that nullified the single greatest accomplishment of his long and storied career.

Abbott didn't appear to see the mask order as a positive when he decided to gamble the health and safety of 30 million Texans on a move that was designed to appease hardcore conservatives like those who made fun of his wheelchair last summer when he raised the specter of a statewide rule before imposing it.

The Republican governor offered no justification for the mask order's invalidation beyond the assertion that Texans don't like the thought of government telling them what to do. The prevailing sentiment at the statehouse has been that Abbott was trying to mend fences with right-wingers with an eye on a race for president in 2024 when he pulled the plug on the mask decree.

Abbott's surprise maneuvering on masks, however, may have made it all but impossible for the governor to ever win another public office as senseless political posturing that's tantamount to a death sentence for countless constituents and destined to prolong the pandemic in the Lone Star State.

Abbott has managed to alienate the lion's share of the people he represents with the mask edict junking that's made him a target of scorn within the Texas medical and business establishments that have been the heart of his base. The governor has put on a clinic in how to fix something that isn't broken with a decision to make critics on the extreme right a higher priority than the vast majority of Texans and the state as a whole.

A lawyer who served as Texas attorney general and state Supreme Court judge, Abbott has to know that there wasn't one legitimate reason to do away with the mask rule. Abbott has Republicans and Democrats alike scratching heads on how he thinks he can build support with a position that's an insult to most Texans' intelligence in a blatant act of pandering for support from people who've been offended by the concept of sacrifice for the greater good.

Abbott has three more days to reassess the epic tomfoolery in the new mask ruling before it takes effect on Wednesday. The governor could mitigate some of the damage that he's done to himself by reversing the decision that the vast majority of Texans see a shocking abuse of power by a leader they thought they could trust in the past.

Abbott's decision to end the mask requirement demonstrates a stunning disconnect from reality in an ivory tower made of tinted glass. The governor expressed righteous indignance to President Joe Biden's portrayal of the ruling as "neanderthal thinking" considering the fact that Texas has a massive amount to lose and nothing to gain from the latest Abbott call on masks.

Abbott has argued that Texans have demonstrated their ability to be personally responsible by wearing masks, avoiding large gatherings and washing their hands a lot. But Abbott said the same exact thing when he lifted restrictions prematurely last year in moves that set the stage for the deadly second and third virus surges here. The state response evolved over the course of a year amid stringent resistance among Donald Trump supporters who capitalized on the contagion as a way of promoting machismo and getting attention that they'd never really had in the past.

While the mask order had no real enforcement mechanism, it had to be on the books as the law of the land before it could work. Abbott demonstrated real leadership by holding his ground on masks until the grandstanding began to subside. The decision to end the mandate without any legitimate reasons could do as much or more damage to the collective psyche in Texas than it does to the public health.

Abbott will be destroying the united front that has evolved in the fight with the coronavirus with the mask mandate as the guiding light and central beam. Texans will be praying before that happens that the governor comes to his sense before pulling the trigger on masks.

 

 

 

 

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