Fox News' Tucker Carlson suggests viewers call the cops on parents with masked children


No one enjoys wearing a face mask, and some medical experts are now saying people — especially vaccinated people — mostly don't need to wear them for non-intimate outdoor activities. The coronavirus does not spread as easily outdoors — though it could jump from human to human if, say, infected Tucker Carlson fans get in your face to scream (politely) about how you are making them uncomfortable by wearing a mask outdoor.
And if one of these triggered people also calls the cops or child protective services because your child is wearing a mask, well, that may be on Carlson, too, after his Monday night show on Fox News.
The Federalist's Molly Hemingway evidently thought Carlson had a good, and viable, idea.
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Carlson's colleague Laura Ingraham hit on masked children, too, suggesting this may be a growing front in the conservative culture wars.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not gone away, new variants seem to be hitting younger people, children are not immune, and people under 16 are not yet eligible to be vaccinated. Also, per science, masks work, even outdoors. An average of about 715 Americans are dying every day from COVID-19, a sharp drop from February but not nothing, and very few of them are children, but not zero. Presumably, Carlson is just trying to make a point about snooty mask wearers scowling at mask scofflaws, but it's unlikely 911 operators will see it that way if his viewers take him seriously.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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