Dori’s Big Lead: Rep. Jayapal goes off on mask-less elevator riders

Far (left) be it for 7th District U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) to suggest on CNN that COVID-19 vaccines and masks don’t work – that would make her a party pariah.

Dori: State fines grow for Burlington café owner who calls mask use optional

But when she compared elevator etiquette and going without a mask to those who seek to “undermine democracy” like the “Jan. 6 insurrectionists,” it does make me wonder.

Rep. Jayapal is double-vaccinated against COVID-19. She wears a mask. In other words, she is coated with not one, but two levels of anti-COVID armor. And yet she still freaks out about getting on an elevator in Washington, D.C., with someone who is not wearing a mask.

“This is about wearing a mask, which is mandated in the Capitol – it is mandated in the Capitol,” she told the CNN host. “It is to protect our safety, our collective safety, the safety of our staffers …”

“This has happened to me,” she continued, “where you get on an elevator and people refuse to wear a mask and your choices are to get off the elevator, or to get on the elevator and tell them to wear a mask.

“I really believe that our colleagues (who) refuse to even adhere to the basic norms of civility are undermining our democracy and, of course, we’re seeing it in more serious ways, like the Jan. 6 insurrection is part of that and part of the attempt to take down a legitimate democracy from functioning in the way it should,” she said.

Is that a tiny bit of hysteria?

Full disclosure: I forgot my mask when I went to the grocery store earlier this week. Am I ruining democracy?

Listen to Dori’s Big Lead and Rep. Jayapal’s comments about masks in elevators here:

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