In normal times, the video that went viral last week of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) walking through a hair salon with wet hair and without a protective face covering would have elicited yawns from most people.
After all, we all get haircuts. Those haircuts usually include having your hair washed prior to having the stylist perform the cut. So of course it’s going to be wet as you walk from the sink to the hair chair.
But as 2020 has shown us again and again, we are most definitely not living in “normal times.” And since mid-to-late March at the start of the pandemic, most of us have not been allowed to get a haircut in a salon because local or state ordinances on indoor gatherings have mandated that salons stay shuttered in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Democrats have been especially keen on reminding everyone of these rules over the last few months. They, along with their allies in the mainstream media, have also been frequent shamers of those who have been seen out in public not wearing masks and/or not social distancing.
This is especially true when it comes to business owners who protested in April and May against rigid stay at home/lockdown rules in states like North Carolina. They marched because they wanted to keep their businesses afloat, and to support their families. Some said the prolonged closures would force them to permanently shut down their businesses.
They were laughed at and called selfish by Democrats. North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, while not outright laughing and saying the word “selfish,” nevertheless let these business owners know how he felt by looking the other way when they were arrested or were threatened with arrest for reopening even with putting precautions in place to protect clients and employees.
Cooper would end up violating his own social distancing and mask rules when he enthusiastically marched with Black Lives Matter protesters around the Executive Mansion sans mask in early June.
He and Pelosi are far from the only Democrats who have taken a “rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me” approach when it comes to following CDC guidelines in the age of the coronavirus.
Various Democratic governors and mayors, including NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, have been caught flouting the coronavirus rules they put in place for common folks. But Pelosi’s faux pas was considered especially egregious considering just hours after getting a haircut and highlights at a closed San Francisco salon, she gave an interview where she ripped RNC attendees who didn’t wear masks nor social distance.
“What further evidence does anyone need that this president didn’t care less about the spread of this virus than to see what he did?” Pelosi remarked on Trump’s Republican National Convention speech. “Bringing all those people there, no masks, no distancing, and the rest. He slapped science right in the face.”
But Pelosi herself has shown she’s not interested in following the rules in spite of her frequent lectures to the contrary.
A day after the story of her salon visit broke, Pelosi had the audacity to claim the whole thing was a “set-up.” Though most of her defenders in the media gave credence to this excuse, CBS News reporter Kathryn Watson went against the grain.
“Pelosi is blaming the salon for setting her up??” Watson asked incredulously after hearing of her response to the uproar. “She’s a public official from California, she should know the rules established by the governor of her own state,” Watson continued, tweeting what too few reporters were willing to say on the record.
House Speaker Pelosi indeed knows the rules established by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom concerning the closure of salons in California during the pandemic. But being the powerful woman she is — third in line to the presidency, in fact — she opted not to follow them.
Because clearly the rules weren’t made for people like her.
The outrage over Pelosi’s salon visit has nothing to do with a haircut, and everything to do with the double standards of Democrats like her and Gov. Cooper when it comes to not adhering to the rules they demand others follow under threat of fines or arrest.
The question has been raised that if they don’t follow the rules when it’s convenient for them, why should anyone else?
Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection
