This was a very big news day. It was discovered today that the United States government has three branches. Who knew? Two of them got very busy. The other lurked.
The Supreme Court was hearing arguments for why they should coronate Trump as emperor. They seemed disinclined, but that could be fleeting, or a misperception of the reason for certain questions. But they did appear to be reluctant to let go of the independence enshrined to them by the Constitution. At stake are the financials for Trump and the Trump Corporation. They are being subpoenaed by the state courts in New York in a criminal trial and the arguments brought by the Administration seemed silly to laypersons, but what do we know? Great minds would be put to work on it. We’ll see. A second case saw Congress seeking the release of unredacted versions of the Mueller report and all supporting documents. Oversight responsibilities of Congress is what is on trial, a fundamental of Constituional Law. Counter arguments felt lame. We’ll see.
Over in the Senate the reopening strategy was on trial. All the major players in the American response were being questioned about where we are at in our fight against Covid-19 and where does that information lead us in our efforts to rescue the economy.
Probably the most surprising thing about this hearing was an almost universally friendly reception by the senators from both sides of the aisle toward experts delivering some pretty tough information. This was not a replay of the impeachment trial with partisanship overwhelming fact gathering. Nearly everyone in the room seemed to perceive these witnesses as the serious professionals they mostly are, trying to protect a nation from an unprecedented disaster.
Nearly.
There’s always that one guy, isn’t there? In this case it was Rand Paul, sporting his new quarantine beard acquired as he recovered from the virus. You remember. Rand was that selfless public servant that while being tested after being exposed to a virus-positive partisan at an event, he decided he’d work out at the Congressional gym and take a few laps at the pool. Having actually contracted the virus had no effect on his dismissal of its seriousness.
Rand wrapped up his questioning by sounding like a kid who has been told to go to bed. This is only a slight paraphrase of his closing remarks.
“You aren’t the boss of me. Who died and made you king? Some people think you’re wrong ya know. I hope if you’re wrong with your models you admit it ’cause I think you’re wrong. You aren’t the end all, buddy. You don’t get to decide about the economy. You need to back down and be more humble, like me.”
Fox News posted the exchange between the senator and the scientist, and the comments on there are shocking. Fauci is villified as a Deep State operative, a saboteur of the American Way. It is viscious, all targeting a guy that has selflessly served this country for more than 40 years. The Fox fans want to tar and feather him. Rand Paul’s speculations about the safety of opening up schools by district based on the concentration of covid cases in that district were floated with no mention of the amount of needed testing to ensure students aren’t walking into an infectious trap, an as yet unrealized disaster.
Rand emplored the doctor to remain humble. Rand’s screed was anything but, though this was entirely predictable. Rand’s style of discourse has always implied that he was twice as smart as necessary to be a senator, and he would dumb things down so the assembled rubes in the chamber would be able to understand his much more advanced musings. Covid-19 had done nothing to tamp down his inflated ego. He was nearly the lone voice trying to undermine the experts. Fauci’s response was measured, did not rise to the bait, and he suggested that it was, in fact, his humility about his knowledge of the inner workings of the virus that made him particularly cautious on a public health level, and that was his only field of expertise. He offered no advice regarding the economy, never had and wouldn’t in the future. It was simply not his area of expertise. He was not there to determine government policy, only to inform it with the best science he could provide.
Somehow this made him a detestable villain to Fox viewers.
Rand wasn’t entirely alone, though.
Robert Redfield, Chairman of the CDC, took the brunt of the attacks. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn) was particularly sharp with him when questioning when he could get the CDC’s guidance regarding reopening his state that had been squashed by the President. The CDC chief didn’t know, but it would be soon. Murphy characterized the answer as “criminally vague” and that “soon” wasn’t good enough.
But the other tough guy in the Senate came as a bit of a surprise, even though he had played his hand at the impeachment trial. Mitt Romney has shown himself to be solidly on the side of the people, at least at this unique time. Asst. Secretary for Health, Brett Giroir, was to discover this in no uncertain terms. The Secretary had been crowing about how the U.S. testing response was now the best in the world in terms of actual numbers of tests administered and that we had surpassed South Korea in tests per capita. Romney quickly and concisely showed how that information was intentionally, politically misleading. Giroir’s history made the accusation easily credible, though Romney found it disgusting in an admiral. Though we had surpassed S. Korea in per capita testing, we had spent almost two months doing nothing, while they had ramped up their testing at the very outset of their first inklings of a problem. The outcomes had been dramatic, as S. Korea has seen less than 300 deaths and the U.S. will hit 90,000 by weeks end. We are winning that contest as well. The clear message was that Giroir was an administration stooge. Senator Romney admonished that the nation’s testing response was nothing to be proud of. No one countered the Senator.
But Romney wasn’t through. The President had recently introduced a new fantasy to his faithful that former President Obama was responsible for there being no vaccine readiness for this virus. It was all the black man’s fault. Romney asked Dr. Fauci if the former president bore any responsibility for the lack of a vaccine. Fauci, in his impossibly neutral manner, vivisected the President’s claims, calling it absurd to blame either Obama or Trump for the difficulties discovering a vaccine represented. Romney carefully directed his questions to display Trump as a lying danger to the population, and Dr. Fauci had, seemingly innocently, delivered the crushing blow.
This was a bad day for the President. Unlike the impeachment, this wasn’t two sides battering each other with no regard to the facts. For the most part, there was only one side, and it wanted the truth, and these exchanges between Romney and the two witnesses underlined that we were not going to get it from the Administration. One witness understood this, the other perpetuated it. The lies had been clearly and unequivocally exposed. All that remained was to see if the public cared.
Over on Fox, they didn’t. On Fox, Rand Paul was the lone voice crying in the wilderness. The Deep State had been revealed as an organized force to undermine the American Way. To get to this conclusion from what was on display yesterday is very hard to watch. The manipulation required to arrive at that conclusion is extraordinary and it is apparently effective. Trump’s 40% will not be moved. He was proven to be a liar yesterday, willing to say anything to try to mitigate his responsibility for this disaster, and it just doesn’t matter.
These folks are not going to be reasoned with. They will not respond to data, to factual reportage, to their own heightened risk by being faithful supporters. They will know he lied, but be perfectly ok with that. They will repeat them as truth. Some will believe him, but most just support him, lies and all. Truth was a small price to pay for revenge, for payback against the eggheads, the know-it-alls, the “elites”. They were the real people that new what it meant to be an American, not scientists, and the time for bending a knee to knowledge was over! The real truth was deeper than the facts.
Come November, it is going to take every one of us to overcome this intellectual overthrow of the least educated among us being led by the least scrupulous. That leadership will see no ethical obstacles in their attempt to retain power, because for them there will be none. Ethics are a misuse of resources, a reduction of force and power which are the only elements of governance that are pragmatic, applicable, reasonable.
They say the truth will always come to light.
In 2020, this axiom will be tested.
Good luck on your exams, everybody.