In his all-out quest to replicate former defeated President Trump's perpetual dickishness and despicable disdain for science, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis decided to berate some high school kids whose job it was to stand behind him while he droned on about "workforce education." Now you might ask why an adult and governor would take it upon himself to chide a bunch of teens. Like what exactly were they doing to warrant such an old-man lashing? Well, it seems they were making a personal health choice to wear masks and DeSantis just couldn't have any of that personal responsibility since his party is completely without it.

"You do not have to wear those masks, I mean please take them off," the governor told the students. "Honestly it's not doing anything. We need to stop with this COVID theater. If you want to wear it fine, but this is, this is ridiculous."

Firstly, you have to feel bad for these poor kids who would rather be playing Fortnite or reading banned books than have to be forced to take part in some far-right, power-hungry governor's presser. Secondly, study after study after study shows that while n95 masks work the best at reducing transmission of COVID, any type of coverage works best, especially for those who might be immunocompromised. But Republicans seem to believe that it's some sort of deep-state plot to make them feel uncomfortable whilst shopping in the Home Depot. Moreover, they prefer everyone just ignore all these well-researched studies and agree to pretend that masks are part of the CDC's sinister plot to control us all.

DeSantis went to the far-right wing safe space known as Tucker Carlson's show immediately after he was called out for basically bullying kids for simply wearing masks.

He said he yelled at the students because he did not want them to think that he had requested they wear masks.

Not surprisingly, Carlson claimed that the reason the media was pissed was that DeSantis telling the kids to take their masks off "refuted the lies that they have told for years" about masking. Indeed, totally failing to realize the many, many studies showing that masking helps reduce transmission, but he's got tons of uneducated and angry old white people to scare. You know, the very vulnerable people that are dying from Covid due to the GOP lies.

"So just to be clear," Carlson said, "Telling kids they don't actually have to wear masks because masks don't work is bullying, but threatening to throw them out of school and destroy their lives if they don't wear a mask is science."

What Putin's errand boy doesn't realize is that actual scientists agree that masks reduce the risk of transmission.

Michael Hayne is a comedian, writer, voice artist, podcaster, and impressionist. Follow his work on Facebook and TikTok