PartyBear said:
Speaking of Abbott, blackie you can blame it on the feckless politicians like Trump and Abbott who feared the maskless crowd and did nothing to to make any kind of reopening safe and anything but essentially temporary. The only leadership the people in Texas have had through this has come from local leaders like Mayor's and city councils and County Judges and county commissioners courts. To this day there is a refusal to lead by anyone over the local level in this state.
Yes, you can push blame up the chain. To me, it all came from the top. Regardless of what you may think of there having been mixed messages, anyone with a lick of sense knows that masking and staying apart can certainly help the situation. It certainly couldn't hurt, especially keeping a distance.
But it became political from the git-go when on the very day it was recommended by the medical people to wear masks, it was no sooner out of Fauci's mouth than Trump proclaimed he wasn't going to wear one. That put pressure on people like Abbott to not buck the leader. And when Abbott didn't issue the order that put many local Republican leaders in Texas in somewhat of a bind as well. Had Trump gone on and worn a mask, it would have given "cover" to every politician at every level and every citizen to do what should make sense to even the dumbest rock in the country.
To be fair, I don't know how you consistently enforce an all out mask order. The biggest problem I have with Abbott is tying enforcement of wearing a mask to putting people in jail. When asked yesterday why he wasn't issuing a mask order, he said he didn't want people thrown in jail for not wearing one, obviously referring to the situation with the hair salon woman in Dallas. She was not thrown in jail for not wearing a mask (she was wearing one) nor even for defying the order to keep her business closed. She was thrown in jail for contempt of court. Fining (which should be the penalty) people for not following an order is not throwing them in jail.
But we got the message from the top (Trump) that not wearing a mask was OK, and certainly not making the country or the President look good if you did. Now we are having to deal with the result of that. I knew when we saw crowds of people acting like nothing has happened, we were hosed. Now we will all pay for it. So, if football or anything else you like is the victim and you haven't been wearing masks and keeping your distance, don't deflect any blame from the person you see in the mirror. It shouldn't have taken an actual EO to tell you that was (and is) the responsible and smart thing to do.