Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and California Governor Gavin Newsom are sparring online over… what to wear on airplanes and whether 2021 federal mask mandates (that have been gone for 3.5 years) was good policy. What on earth…?
The federal transportation mask mandate was silly, put in place after vaccination was available, good masks were widely available for anyone that wanted them, the virus had already spread broadly and restrictions had been lifted in most other areas of lift.
- It never made sense to require masking outdoors during the pandemic. There was very little outdoor transmission of the virus.
- It never made sense to require low quality masks. To a large extent N95 masks were prophylactic, while cloth masks weren’t. Cloth masks were entirely performative.
- It never made sense to require masks on planes with HEPA air filtration and downward air flow but not in bars. The federal government had authority over interstate transportation that didn’t exist to the same extent for local businesses.
And nicer dress will not stop today’s behavioral issues on planes.
- Attire isn’t meaningfully worse than prepandemic before the spike in in-flight issues.
- Pandemic mask conflicts brought greater reporting, so pre- and post-Covid data isn’t really comparable.
- There are a greater proportion of infrequent travelers now – the number of business travelers is back, but on average each one doesn’t travel as often.
- The world gotten more weird and you confine that weirdness inside a metal tube, that leads to conflict and misunderstanding.
Why are we having this seemingly specious argument, re-litigating pandemic mask rules in California versus bad behavior and dress codes on planes?
Not true, Gavin.
Unlike your mask mandate, our attire recommendations don’t impede on Americans’ civil liberties.
Look your best, feel your best.
And don’t worry, you can still wear your skinny jeans! https://t.co/a4MlyaCDtl
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) November 22, 2025
Simple – because Gavin Newsom is running for President. He is weak on personal issues like betraying his close friend and campaign manager to have an affair with the man’s wife who was also his subordiate, and imposing pandemic rules he did not see the need to follow himself (French laundry).
He is smug and California is a problematic model for the rest of the country because endowments like weather and ocean and tech and Hollywood talent clusters allow it to make expensive investments and survive sclerotic bureaucracy in ways that aren’t replicable elsewhere. California can thrive in spite of its politics, and has more surplus to redistribute without killing its goose – than other states could hope for. Only New York City comes close.
Newsom is working hard to insulate himself from these issues and paint himself as a reasonable centrist who can also be strong on the attack against the Trump administration. Republicans want to undercut that. (Newsom is running to the center with his podcast and cutting deals that simultaneously are giveaways both to business and unions, at the expense of citizens.)
At the same time, Republican opposition to masks during the pandemic was sort of weird. They were a conservative alternative to lockdowns. And also to vaccines were one of 3 great accomplishments of the first Trump administration (along with criminal justice reform and the Abraham Accords). Vaccines were great – initially sterilizing before the virus mutated, still highly protective against severe disease.
Yet too many people were required to take them (especially after effectiveness had waned). It was dumb that prior infection and an mRNA dose didn’t count but a far less effective Johnson & Johnson shot did. There was stupidity on both sides. Dredging that up stirs the base that likely wouldn’t consider the other side to begin with. But here we are, rehashing something that makes everyone dumber.
Make no mistake, the USSR broke up in our lifetime. Yugoslavia did too. This will happen to the United States of America at some point. It’s as certain as the sun rises and sets each day.
When, not if, California becomes its own nation, they will be a major power player in the world with an economy greater than Japan and even with Germany. The rest of the USA (what is left) will have to trade and negotiate with California on their terms.
I thought it would be 100+ years from now. I bet my entire retirement that it will happen in less than ten years from today.
@Mike:
It can’t happen soon enough. I would love to see it before I die.