Why Republicans Demonize Anthony Fauci
Shame is not in their vocabulary.
During a contentious Senate testimony last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly took the fifth when questioned, which raises the larger question as to why was Dr. Fauci, who’s retired from public life, dragged in front of a Senate committee hearing to play a less-than-friendly game of Perjury Trap before a live studio audience? Well, as Dr. Fauci explained in opening statement, Republican Sen. Rand Paul is obsessed with Dr. Fauci for reasons that only make sense to his conspiracy-addled brain. (It probably doesn’t help that Dr. Fauci is a real doctor and Rand Paul received his board certification from a bubblegum machine.)
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something — anything — that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words — quote — ‘behind bars,’” Dr. Fauci said in his opening remarks.
“Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion,” Dr. Fauci continued. “Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the 5th Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.” (Watch the shameful spectacle below.)
Not beating the “unhinged obsession” charges, Paul publicly released more than 1,100 pages of Dr. Fauci’s private diary, which I suppose is now just a “diary.” It’s what the gross older brother does to his sister in a teen movie. Everyone rightly hates that guy. Paul’s motivation is only slightly less juvenile, though the motivations are just as sinister. He’s pursuing his white whale (really a rather dainty 85-year-old man) in a tedious investigation about whether the Covid-19 virus was leaked from a Chinese laboratory. Paul insists Dr. Fauci lied to Congress about the origins of the virus.
Paul wasn’t alone on the coo-coo train to McCarthy-ville. Other twisted opportunists and anti-health zealots (or, as we call them, “Republicans) eagerly joined the witch hunt.
Father of the year Sen. Bernie Moreno told Dr. Fauci that he was inspired to run for office after a woman was tased and arrested at a middle school football game in September 2020. He claims this was because she refused to wear a mask — during a period when there was no vaccine and cases were rampant — but technically the woman was tased and arrested because she refused to just leave as requested.
“Here I am sitting in front of you six years later, saying, who the fuck do you think you were for doing that?” Moreno asked Dr. Fauci, who was neither the Ohio governor or the U.S. president in September 2020. “It is a total disgrace what you did to this country, and if my Democrat colleagues are standing there defending you, I hope the voters, the United States of America, watch the clips of every one of you doting on a guy who is more interested in being a celebrity than saving American people.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, who’s never had to truly answer for his part in promoting a violent coup agains the government, also feigned tremendous moral outrage over Dr. Fauci’s diabolical efforts to keep people from dying.
“You were using federal employees with taxpayer money to apply for and solicit cash prizes for you personally, cash prizes totaling over $1 million,” Hawley said — clearly offended at the idea that a public official would ever use his position for personal enrichment. “You did all of that during the pandemic, didn’t you?” (These are lies, by the way.)
It’s a long way from when Brad Pitt played Dr. Fauci in a 2020 Saturday Night Live cold open. But that’s how life goes. Your peak of popularity comes during a global pandemic. You don’t even get to enjoy all the gala cocktail parties because everything’s shut down. (Brad Pitt was later accused of assaulting his now-ex-wife Angelina Jolie and his own kids, who want nothing to do with him. Maybe the pandemic was better for everyone involved here.)
Republicans are setting up Dr. Fauci as the Trotsky scapegoat for everything they hated about the 2020 Covid era. This includes the Covid vaccine, which was the Trump administration’s one decent accomplishment. Last week, Fox News “legal analyst” Emily Compagno offered some Bizarro World history about the vaccine.
“What I see here is not that Operation Warp Speed was the result of a concerted effort in war time,” Compagno said, as if washing her own brain in real time. “It was simply at the behest of one small, egomaniacal, hubris-infected individual who made everyone fall in line behind him, and those who dared to question him in any way, shape, or form were vilified and ostracized.”
Compagno is not actually describing Donald Trump, even though he is a “small, egomaniacal, hubris-infected individual” and was the actual president in 2020. Dr. Fauci worked for Trump, but Republicans act as if Dr. Fauci was pulling the strings, which I suppose is a reasonable conclusion considering that Trump is an empty-headed dummy, but Trump is more like the evil dummy in a Twilight Zone episode who does his own thing, like recommend people shoot Windex up their ass.
Predictably, Trump did immediately claim credit for Operation Warp Speed while Republicans were ganging up on Fauci.
“‘Operation Warp Speed’ was a SPECTACULAR SUCCESS, in fact, many say, one of the most successful things ever done by an American President. I overrode Fauci on this. His ideas were CRAZY! Also, I said from the beginning that the Virus came from the Wuhan Laboratory in China. Fauci strongly disagreed, always trying to protect China. I Inherited Fauci, who was there since the 1980’s, but with each passing day, relied less and less on him. He made too many bad calls, like on MASKS. Remember at the beginning he was an anti-masker. He then switched to a super-masker.”
Dr. Fauci has addressed this. He was responding to the science — whether masks were actually effective at reducing transmission in a community setting — and the practical reality of potential shortage of masks in hospitals, where they were needed most. There was no “flip-flopping” or deliberate attempt to mislead Americans.
“In any event I didn’t let him shut the Country down, although he wanted to. I went the Federalist way, and let the governors decide. The Republican governors did a much better job than the Dumocrats. Fauci was largely taken out of play, and then along came Sleepy Joe Biden, who made Fauci a ‘King!’ I called Biden to tell him Fauci was no good, either didn’t have a clue, or was dishonest. The call was well received, but sadly, not acted on. Biden went on to give Fauci vast destructive power. The rest is history!”
No, this entire message is fantasy. Trump did in fact “shut down” the country in March 2020, and he didn’t actually “let the governors decide.” He actively undermined Democratic governors who made tough choices at a difficult time. I know Trump pathologically blames Joe Biden for everything that goes wrong, but Biden pretty much ended all major Covid restrictions by the summer of 2021. Dr. Fauci would retire in 2022, but it’s unclear what “vast destructive power” he wielded.
Megyn Kelly declared on her show last week that Dr. Fauci had harmed more people than Jeffrey Epstein, which is a deranged statement yet perfectly in character for a professional terrible person.
Fauci-haters don’t hide their resentment for a man who dedicated his life to public service. They want to paint him as a vainglorious petty tyrant because they can’t dare express their contempt for the White House occupant who actually fits that description.
Autocrats need villains and scapegoats. Still alive? Thank Dr. Fauci and the millions of Americans who listened to him and other trained medical experts.
Where is our “at long last, have you no shame?” moment from the Democrats? I don’t see how a mentally functioning adult can watch these oozing scumbags pile on at the longtime public servant who obviously did nothing wrong here (except maybe not resigning once it was clear Trump would make the pandemic worse—at some point you can’t do good serving such people, and you need to drop the fantasy that you can steer him in the right direction). Yet Democrats keep maintaining decorum, allowing regular business to continue, even voting for some Trump nominees, and giving fawning tributes when one of the scumbags dies.
At least one of them needed to jump the table, punch out Rand Paul and say “that’s from your neighbor, Brillo head!” Instead we get the measured, sober tones that tell the general public “this is all so normal I completely forgot about the Epstein files, ICE gunning down citizens, and our being the first power to lose to Iran since the Medes.”
Fuck everyone.