So, I just got back last night from a two-day road trip to a red state. The first day was spent in a large, sprawling city and the second day was spent in a rural, but somewhat touristy area.
In the city, I was on a mission to visit four used bookstores (in the same chain) that were scattered around the city. Surprisingly, there were two different sets of store policies regarding COVID, despite being the same chain. Two stores said they were following the CDC policies and recommended mask wearing and the other two stores were mandating mask wearing, saying you couldn't go in without wearing one . You could actually feel the fear in the air there, which was strange to me, as the area where I live has a "live and let live" attitude towards the mask -- mask-wearing is a personal choice and no one cares what you do or don't do. I've heard about people double-masking, but in this city I saw multiple people double-masked...outside even! I felt very ill-at-ease in this city -- like I was in the middle of a zombie movie. I was really glad to get out of there.
Went to the rural area, which was around two hours away from the city, and it was the complete and total opposite. No one (except the occasional dumb tourist) was wearing a mask -- not the staff at the hotel, not the cashiers or store clerks, not the people working in restaurants, and not even the vast majority of the people that were there to enjoy the area. It was business as usual, like the pandemic had never existed. The contrast could not have been more stark.
I don't know why there was such a contrast. My guess is that the city has more liberals and the rural areas have more based conservatives. Either that, or the country folk are just too busy working for a living to have any time to be brainwashed by the MSM.
I live in the douchiest county in CO - AND the only county with a current indoor mask mandate regardless of vax status. My husband and I just returned from an extended road trip, and I saw exactly what you're describing. Around Atlanta, lots of people were masked up with the outliers being wide open. In Alabama near the coast, I only saw a few masks, and you could tell they were tourists. In the Black Hills of SD, I didn't see one mask at the 54th Annual Buffalo Roundup where around 20K people gather every year. Also, we paid attention to the local news stations. Here at home, we're literally inundated with mask, Covid, vaccine segments ALL THE DAMN TIME, but down there...it was barely mentioned. In all of those states. Definitely confirms a couple of things for me: 1.) We need to move...and 2.) It ain't about a virus. At all.
I think it's also related to the environment/upbringing that tends to lead people to choose different professions. I was at a conference in Florida last week. Two conventions in the same conference center - mine in the construction services industry, the other was an accounting conference or something. Same mask rules (FL no mandate rules, but convention center says unvaxxed AND vaxxed strongly encouraged), same location (north side vs south side of the convention center), both had about the same number of attendees.
The construction conference was 99% unmasked. The accountants seemed to be about 75% masked.
People who's survival and day to day lives depend more on their own capabilities and actions tend to be somewhat better put together, and the more someones day to day life and survival depends on society, abilities and actions of others the less connected to anything real they will be.....
Think about it....
I live in Missouri, a red state with most of the major metropolitan areas being run by Dems and heavily blue, where masks were mandated. It is exactly as you say. I live in a very red, very rural county and was not really impacted by all the craziness, as while a couple of the stores recommended masks and made their employees wear them, only about 50% of the shoppers wore them in my nearest town, and as soon as those two stores took down their mask signs, the masks virtually disappeared. At the same and 7 miles away is another town, which had no mask requirements anywhere and only a couple shoppers would be masked up. My point is that to some degree the amount of mask wearers is a function of the signage and behavior of the PTB in any given location. The only other difference I can see is that in the blue areas the population is more demanding of the masks because of their fear and how they think, whereas in the red areas people are left alone to make their own choice.
I live in a red state other than the blue major cities. I'm in the county and noone gives a crap. There are still the idiots wearing masks in their cars alone but 99% don't buy the nonsense. I don't wear a mask, I wear my sidearm in it's American flag holster. Walmart was the only place with mask-nazis but since I only go there every few months, they're easy to walk past.
Oddly enough, I've never had any issues at Walfart (as I affectionately call them :-). In fact, most of the local employees have their masks under their noses. No one's ever called me out for going in there maskless.
Exactly this is my experience also. Indoor mask mandate as per our Governess but no one is strictly enforcing it and the employees are wearing under their noses unless they have an ass-hat for a supervisor - and only then if they are within eye sight.
Leftists are not "liberal" in any way. I can't bring myself to call them liberals. If we go by the original definition of "liberal" they would be much more like libertarians.
I'm an old-school anarchist and about as liberal as they come when comes to individual freedom and people doing whatever the fuck they want and whatever floats their boat(as long as all parties involved/physically affected are so by their own volition anything more than having an opinion would put ME in the wrong).
What I'm not is anything even remotely left-leaning....
Okay, then Leftists it is.
It can vary a ton. My job has me going out of town about an hour away to the sticks to cover their huge ass area. I was expecting them to be like your posts but instead found it stricter in the sticks where all the old people retire to. Aside from megacorps and the brainwashed it was a mixed experience in the big city. That was in the thick of 2020 too. Now nobody gives a shit since stores are just putting up signs "asking" you to mask up and others saying the jabbed can enter mask free with legalese at the bottom saying they won't ask for verification. It was super bizarre going to Sam's Club twice in the same week when they changed policies. It went from super security egomaniac at the door handing out masks and wet wipes etc., to the regular old shit when they just make sure you have a membership card.
Yea, I notice the closer I get to DC from western Va, the more masks.
Personal observation from a DEEP blue state with majority being either a gov employee or on LOTS of gov assistance (dependency)...If you go into a retail establishment, nearly 85-100% mask compliance BUT no one tells you diddly if you (me and my wife, for example) goes in without a mask - I originally told them "not wearing under advisement by a medical care provider" if they asked but now nobody asks so I don't have to go with that exclusion. I go into restaurants and see nobody but the employees wearing and they don't say anything, even though they have signs on doors saying "masks required". You would have no clue that we're in a "pandemic" if not for the signs and the occasional dumbass Branch Covidian that puts their mask on to enter or leave the business after spending 2 hours with their mask off while sitting down at their table in a packed restaurant. I interact with customers in both indoor and outdoor settings and maybe 10% are wearing a mask when THEY approach ME and none of them say a thing about me not wearing one. In short, even the ones wearing the masks won't let their irrational fear stand in the way of them doing business with me - and I will be the first to admit that my product is the most non-essential thing you can spend your money on. My business is booming so I don;t think the lack of confrontation from customers is because anyone is avoiding me because I'm not a mask-hole either.
Today I went to a large chain grocery store in a reddish/blue suburb of a big city in US.
Saw only one other man in the store without a mask, though i never was asked to wear one, everyone was on their own volition. I could see in the eyes of a few men that they knew what they were doing (masked) vs me (unmasked) was dumb. One guy i saw at first had the mask under his nose & I later saw him at the checkout with it under his chin.
I've found that a lot of people wearing masks really do want to take them off. They're just looking for an unmasked person to validate their desire. Be the brave one and show them how it's done! We can free the world one mask at a time.
At my local Walmart, I had a guy ask me and the wife, both of us maskless, if it was "okay" to go maskless here (not according to my Governess its not) - told him "I'm not making you wear it and no one said anything to us when we came in so that's your decision." He got a big smile on his face and stuck his mask in his pocket.
Nice!
Hopefully, next time he doesn't put it on automatically.
It is a new test for me - if I'm pestered about a mask I just set my stuff down where I stand & walk out. That business has lost my patronage for life at that point.
I recently had one door greeter at wally world ask if I'd like a mask, when I said "No" she said "You should have a mask on as recommended by the CDC" - I told her it was none of her business why I did not have one on - I told her to call the cops if she had a problem with it. Went about my business like I owned the place and nobody said shit to me the rest of the 20 minutes I was in the store. I think the vast majority of mask wearers are only wearing them to avoid confrontation.
I haven't seen double maskers in months, we briefly had a handful when they tried pushing that shit but seems even they got tired of it quickly.