The implicit meaning of the comments was certain: This is an unnecessary culture war.
Burgum continued, getting teary.
“If someone is wearing a mask, they’re not doing it to represent what political party they’re in or what candidates they support,” Burgum stated, in advance of his voice starting to give out. “They might be doing it because they’ve got a 5-year-old child who’s been going through cancer treatments. They might have vulnerable adults in their life who currently have COVID, and they’re fighting.”
Burgum finished his thinking: “I would just love to see our state, as part of being North Dakota Smart, also be North Dakota Kind, North Dakota Empathetic.”
To avoid any uncertainty, the amount of people demonstrating the mask-wearing is tiny. Incidents such as the one in Minnesota are an anomaly, not the norm. However, there are innumerable folks are coming back into their communities and, as they do that, saying no to wearing a mask, despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising it.
