I had a realization at the grocery store the other day. First, lemme back up. When I go shopping, I hit the following in order:

1) The butcher. They're small-town, redneck AF, great prices, incredibly busy, sort of a discontinuity in the universe. They have literally five aisles worth of hot sauce and three wrap-around counters of meat. They do not suffer vegetarians, they have nothing organic, and they have at least 35 different aprons and tea towels that offend your liberal sensibilities.

2) Trader Joe's. I used to be anti-Aldi until I realized Kroger was worse. Nonetheless Trader Joe's remains a hipster Grocery Outlet with the identity politics to match.

3) Fred Meyer, the Pacific Northwest's own Kroger casualty. Ours was recently "remodeled" to get rid of everything that the Pacific Northwest likes and replace it with what Cleveland likes. The staff are dying inside. The customers are increasingly becoming the ones who would shop at the Walmart Supercenter that will invariably replace it without noticing that the signage has changed.

I was the first person to wear a mask at the butcher, the first person to wear a mask at Trader Joe's and the third person I saw wearing a mask at Fred Meyer. By early march I heard grumblings from behind the counter at the butcher that they should probably wear masks as "bobby is stuck in bed, has to be COVID-19". Trader Joe's started lines before anybody else up here and they've been on top of it; the demise of the tasting counter on March 2nd was the first real sign that things were going to change. Fred Meyer has been a nightmare from start to finish but we're now at about 80% masks at the butcher, about 95% masks at Trader Joe's and maybe 70% masks at Fred Meyer.

I was distracted when I went to Trader Joe's on Sunday. Forgot my mask. My clue was a lady in a mask staring at me like I was about to murder her children. I turned around and got my mask and realized that while maybe I wasn't as visibly judging the people without masks? I was judging them. And so is everybody else.

Up here in a liberal city in a liberal state, masks have become the default. It was perhaps easier because we have a big Korean population that jumped on masks immediately and a huge Ethiopian and Somali population where the women generally have covered faces anyway. But it was clear in watching the butcher's crew wrap their heads around it that take away the science, take away the epidemiology, take away the n rating and

a face mask is a liberal MAGA hat.

Face masks are about as visual a refutation of the President as you can think of. They are a bold and defiant statement of distrust, an acknowledgement that your leader is wrong and your guidance is elsewhere. And yeah - the facts are on your side and the science is on your side but really, the fear is on your side, too. And if you've been listening to the President up until now, the minute you put on that mask, you're wearing the other team's MAGA hat. You are wearing the away team's jersey. You are wearing enemy colors. You are rooting for the other side.

Yes. Absolutely. Nobody is doing this for political reasons. Yes. Absolutely. Hygiene cares not for your affiliation. Yes. Absolutely. The preponderance of evidence is so thunderously on one side that debate is pointless. Still, he persisted.

I don't think enough people are considering the impact of wearing a yellow ribbon. The Nazis put a yellow badge on the Jews; the IDF puts a yellow badge on their soldiers. I think the propagandists know, though. The minute we start dressing like the Deep State, the Deep State has won. We will never Make America Great Again if we can't see each others' triumphant smiles in the face of this vastly-overrated illness. As soon as people start dressing like victims, they'll start thinking like victims and before too long, they'll want a government that actually does something about it.

I don't think Pence not wearing a mask is stupid at all. At this point the masks are fuckin' liberal flag lapel pins except so, so, so much more widespread. If you adopt their mentality, you belong to them and the only thing this administration has anymore is defiance.