56% OF AMERICANS SAY: WE WANT MASK MANDATES.

The people have spoken.

…but check back with them in a month and they might be speaking differently.

For now, one glance at this result from YouGov will show you why Joe Biden was scrupulously noncommittal when asked by Lester Holt a few days ago whether it’s time for mask mandates to go away. Democratic politicians know they need to roll back restrictions as we transition to endemic COVID. They learned the hard way in Virginia what can happen at the polls when they drag their feet on getting back to normal.

But their base really, really doesn’t want to.

* * * * * * * *

Having spent two years convincing themselves that maximum COVID precautions at all times is the ne plus ultra of civic virtue, Democrats will now have to somehow accept that abandoning that view doesn’t amount to sinking into right-wing vice. Essentially, they’ll need to be deprogrammed. Biden and his party’s establishment have less than nine months to do it.

“Deprogrammed,” huh? But pay no attention to all of that “mass formation psychosis” talk.