Conservatives Blast Stacey Abrams For Maskless Photo-Op— She Calls A ‘False Political Attack’

Topline

Stacey Abrams, a Democratic candidate for the 2022 Georgia governor’s race, responded Sunday to criticism from Republicans after a photo of a maskless Abrams posing with a group of masked children for a photo circulated, denouncing the outrage as a “false political attack” without explaining why she wasn’t wearing a mask at a school with an indoor mask mandate.

Georgia gubernatorial Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams poses for a photo during an interview with … [+] The Associated Press on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, in Decatur, Ga.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Key Facts

Friday night, Abrams retweeted a post from the principal of a Decatur, Ga., elementary school that included several photos of Abrams not wearing a mask while the children and teachers photographed were masked during a visit to the school (Decatur has a city-wide indoor mask mandate).

The principal later deleted her account and Abrams deleted her retweet, though the tweets are still captured by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Over the weekend, screenshots of the deleted posts made the rounds on social media, especially in right-wing circles, including Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor running for reelection against Abrams.

Kemp tweeted Saturday night that Abrams drops her own support of mask mandates “when she’s attending a photo op.”

Abrams’ stance on mask requirements in school isn’t known, though she voiced opposition to Kemp’s mandate prohibiting city-level mask mandates in 2020, and it’s unclear if Abrams wore a mask during her school visit outside of the photos.

Opposition to school mask mandates have increasingly become a hot-button issue for the right, and a viral tweet from conservative commentator Clay Travis resharing an image of Abrams with the children decried the situation as “child abuse,” has more than 16,000 likes so far.

Crucial Quote

Abrams addressed the controversy for the first time in an Instagram post Sunday afternoon, calling it a “pathetic, transparent and silly attack is beneath anyone who claims he wants to lead Georgia.”

Key Background

Since the early days of the pandemic, social media posts of left-wing politicians violating Covid-19 protocols they support have gone viral—true or not. A picture of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and other Democratic Congresspeople went viral in July 2020 for not following masking or social media problems—but the image was before the pandemic, in 2019. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti came under fire last week for appearing maskless in pictures at a Los Angeles Rams game despite citywide and statewide mask mandates. And Newsom stoked controversy in November 2020 for dining maskless indoors at the upscale northern California restaurant The French Laundry, defying his Covid-19 restrictions and partially fueling a 2021 recall election that cost California over $200 million to conduct.

Big Number

59%. That’s how many parents support mask mandates in schools, according to an Axios/Momentive poll from September.

Tangent

It’s not just politicians on the left criticized for their mask wearing: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who signed an executive order barring school mask mandates on his first day in office, was heckled at a Virginia grocery store this week for not wearing a mask. In a video of the interaction, another shopper asked the maskless Youngkin where his mask was, telling him to “read the room,” while Youngkin replied, “We’re all making choices today.”