However, in the setting of COVID, it was unfortunately the president who did the most to turn face masks into a political flashpoint, creating an ideological movement that ultimately cornered the administration into a dogmatic position that proved harmful to itself and harmful to the nation.47 It may have been a misreading of the politics: antimasking didn’t become a political movement until many political leaders made it so. In fairness to the White House, the CDC gave political leaders mixed guidance on masks during the early months of the pandemic and was itself initially resistant to their
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