The vast majority of doctors and scientists agree that wearing a mask will decrease one’s chance of contracting or spreading COVID-19.

There is a social aspect to this decision that entails looking out for your neighbors and their health, as well as an economic aspect that entails a direct relationship between how bad the pandemic is and how much of the economy should be open.

On the surface, wearing a mask doesn’t seem to relate to the politics at all. But these are not normal times. Somehow, the choice to wear or not to wear a mask has been drawn up along political lines. President Trump himself has stated that he does not wear a mask in public because he doesn’t want to look ridiculous and he wants to deny the press the pleasure of seeing him with one.

Democratic lawmakers in Washington are refusing to allow non-mask wearing Republicans to speak during committee hearings.

Closer to home, as the Legislature meets at UNH, a group of lawmakers refuse to wear masks and sit together in the stands, an area they have branded the “Freedom Section.” This battle over masks has spilled into the streets as well.

Many conservatives have taken their cue from the president and refuse to wear masks. Some believe that the dangers of the virus have been far overblown. Some believe that their refusal is a demonstration of their independence from what they consider to be overreaching state governments.

At the Trump rally in Tulsa, one of the president’s supporters summed up how many in the crowd were feeling: “This is a free country and I can do what I want. If I want to wear a mask, I wear a mask. If I don’t, I don’t. If I get sick, I get sick. That’s my choice.”

As for those who choose to wear a mask, Trump has declared that he believes that some liberals wear them to signal their displeasure with him, as opposed to the medical reasons proposed by his own task force.

So, the political lines are seeming to develop loosely into liberals supporting wearing masks while conservatives support going mask-free.

The data is backing up this idea. A poll by Kaiser Family Foundation reports that 89 percent of Democrats wear a mask usually or every time they leave home, while only 58 percent of Republicans do the same. An online news site may have summed it up best with their headline, “Wearing a mask is for smug liberals. Refusing to is for reckless Republicans.”

But the signals are also getting mixed by those looking for political points. Recently, Donald Trump Jr., referring to COVID-19, told Fox News that Democrats “seemingly hope that it comes here, and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump’s streak of winning.”

This seems to be a direct contradiction to the idea that liberals support forcing people to wear masks in public in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. On the other hand, conservatives note that many liberals who complain about people protesting lock-down policies at state legislatures without masks turn a blind eye to protesters gathering in large groups to support the Black Lives Matter movement, though evidence shows that the vast majority of BLM protesters do so while wearing masks.

This argument also creates a false equivalency between protesting one’s right to go to the gym or local bar without a mask with the desire to end racial injustice.

So the question to ask is how did a pandemic become political? One idea is that we are in an election year where each party is looking to shore up their base. Nothing does this better than to paint the other party as working against the good of society, and pandemics serve as a useful tool.

In October of 2016, a month before the election, it seemed that everyone in America was on the verge of catching Ebola based on the hysteria that died away days after the polls closed. COVID-19 is a far greater danger and therefore a more powerful weapon.

A second possibility is the political direction social media has taken in recent years. What was once a platform to share photos of friends or ask for dining recommendations has evolved into a political battleground. Users of Facebook, for example, tend to be friends with people who share their viewpoints. This allows divisions to solidify quickly into “us against them” camps.

Liberals may be bombarded by shared news articles or friends’ posts promoting mask-wearing while shaming those who don’t. On the other hand, conservatives may see a wave of posts encouraging them to fight what they see as government oppression or show their loyalty to their mask-avoiding president.

Finally, similar to MAGA hats or Bernie bumper stickers, masks may be evolving into a quick and easy shorthand to declare where you stand politically without having to say it out loud. But unlike a hat or a bumper sticker, putting on a mask may save your life.

(Aaron Blais teaches Government and American History in Exeter.)