The per capita US death rate is in the middle of the UK, Italy, Spain, and France (which together have about half of Europe’s population). The only country that did substantially better was Germany.
Are you saying masks were politicized in all of those countries besides Germany?
Then maybe you can tell us why blue states NJ, NY, and MA have the highest death rates in the US?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
And, in particular, with infectious disease a few bad apples spoil the bunch.
Can you tell us why the current delta deaths are pretty much entirely the unvaccinated? Care to take a stab at what the #1 predictor of vaccine status is? [1]
Also, maybe a shocker to you, but densely populated states (such as NJ, NY, and MA) tend to do poorly when a communicable disease hits. It spreads fast and the hospitals are overwhelmed.
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
There's the bait and switch.
You see, cloth masks aren't as effective as N95 mask, that doesn't mean they aren't effective. Nor does it mean that the government mandates to wear masks are ineffective.
Frankly, you can look at nearly every other world government that issued similar guidance to the CDC and in all cases those countries did better than the US. Why? Because it wasn't a political issue. The countries that faired the worst all turned COVID into a game of the left vs right.
You can't say masking and social distancing don't work or are ineffective when 40% of the population goes out of it's way to not wear masks, wear them under their nose, and decides to hold big rallies and gathering to celebrate how much they hate wearing masks.