Another day goes by. We are down to four states with no reported cases. They will soon lose their distinction. Financial news and futures are worse. I’m feeling bleak, if I’m honest, and I think I could easily justify the mood, but I won’t. I’m going to push back instead and look for light.
There will be heroes to spare as we really get into this, everyday heroes that go into harms way for a greater good, probably millions of them. They will be faceless and nameless and priceless.
But of the “players” in this disaster, it seems there is one man who has clearly distinguished himself as one of integrity, insight and honesty and not a small amount of courage for speaking truth to power.
I’m talking, of course, about Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, immunologist and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. A former recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he is in no need of accolades and is untethered in his current role. He has repeatedly contradicted the President, often times in real time as he followed him on a podium. Today he called America’s testing response to this emergency a failure, and said it needs to be called such.
He laid it at the door.
Looking at it politically, or cynically as I like to refer to it, he is nearly untouchable. His credentials are impeccable and what he is reporting is incontrovertible, his advice the very best available, his dedication to the data and reporting the national prognosis as a necessary result of the response, which has been inept and lethargic, is impossible to argue with.
The President must be blowing a gasket. I’m absolutely certain he wants to fire this man, but that could actually be the end game. Dr. Fauci represents the best opportunity to respond better as a nation from shaming the administration publicly when they misrepresent the data, and the best hope by showing the way to the best outcome that still remains. Best uses of available resources while screaming for more resources.
If he was removed, the snickers that happen on the right when someone they don’t like gets unceremoniously shown the door (applause to the President) would be silent. The political miscalculation would be graphic and immediate. Even the loyalists would have to face the threat of how unconscionable a choice they would have to make to support that decision and how unpopular it would be to the sick folks back home. I think that would potentially be a uniting moment for the country, a universal betrayal that we could acknowledge together and share and die for.
And isn’t that all we want?
Of course it isn’t. Dr. Fauci is fighting for all of us, and he’s a pitbull. You can’t push him around, you can’t shake him. Maybe being in his late seventies he just doesn’t give a damn, I don’t know. But he is the deep state, folks. In the flesh, the background professionals who are the conspiring usurpers of the levers of government from the rightful owners. Dr. Fauci has the stage and is using his pulpit in noble and courageous ways, but there are thousands of him/her throughout the government, grinding, doing the job, providing the raw data from which, one would hope, policy is made.
They are who you think is the enemy.
Funny. They’re trying to save you anyway.
And that’s the light.