As he boarded one of the hundreds of elevators in the sprawling complex, his frustration came to a head. He knew he wasn’t going to change any minds, but he had to say something. So he turned and confronted a maskless fellow staffer.

“I’m fully vaccinated, are you not?” the man shot back, tension crackling in the tiny space. The exchange was over almost as quickly as it began. The elevator doors opened, and both went about their days.

Scenes like this are playing out all around the Capitol this fall, as some staffers say they feel trapped in a neverending proxy war, squabbling over masks as larger partisan tensions rage in Congress. Nineteen months into the pandemic, masks are still so much more than simple pieces of fabric — and that’s especially true when you work on Capitol Hill, in the heart of political Washington…

“It literally feels like going into work is going into a battle,” says another House Democratic staffer, who is fed up and applying for other jobs. He no longer feels safe on the Hill after a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol at the beginning of the year, and the continued tension over masking has made the climate even worse for him.