> When the powerful can ignore their own rules, they're more likely to enact sweeping mandates. The sweeping mandates are for our public health. These folks ar

> When the powerful can ignore their own rules, they're more likely to enact sweeping mandates. The sweeping mandates are for our public health. These folks aren't asking us to mask up or vaccinate for their own benefit. And they can only sorta ignore their own rules, because aren't they being roasted in the media when they mess up? The fourth estate at work. It will affect their re-election chances. > The problem is that so many elected officials don't abide by the rules that they push. Hypocrisy sucks, everyone agrees. Gavin Newsom having maskless restaurant meals when asking the rest of us to stay home is wrong. But it's wrong mainly because _masking is good for public health_ and he didn't listen to the advice of the medical professionals that he was parroting, nor did he conduct himself in the way a public servant held to a higher standard should. It doesn't change that masking and staying at home _does_ help everyone, by keeping hospitals from exceeding capacity and minimizing needless death. There will always be virtue signalers and hypocrites but let's not allow them to stand in the way of sane public health policy.