Yesterday I noted a deluge of information hitting us daily that points to a nation very much unprepared to begin easing social distancing rules and widespread business closures, owing to the escalating spread of the coronavirus and the lack of various measures in place — testing, contact tracing, and the like — that can help mitigate and contain its spread. A few more such sources are worth adding: the testimony of Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Robert Redfield to the Senate on Tuesday, and today’s testimony of Dr. Rick Bright, a former high-ranking health official turned whistleblower. The New York Times characterizes their cumulative testimony as a “one-two punch for the administration,” an accurate assessment as far as it goes, but which leaves out the urgent moral and health dimensions of why this is so.
Dr. Fauci warned of “needless suffering and death” if states open up too quickly, while Dr. Bright said the U.S. would face “the darkest winter in modern history” if the Trump administration does not move forward with adequate national testing and accompanying mitigation strategies. Against the urgency these two experts place on saving American lives, and on the need for both progress and plans before restrictions should be eased, is opposed the president’s obsession is with revving up the economy, without regard for the human cost, without consideration of the concrete measures that could make re-opening far safer, and without acknowledgment of the likely spiking of the virus that is likely to result as Americans begin to re-engage in behavior that facilitates its spread.
While both doctors drew on their experience and expertise, the president’s criticism of their testimony demonstrates his ignorance and basic unfitness for office. His remarks about Dr. Fauci’s testimony are particularly telling. Responding to the doctor’s remarks about a too-quick re-opening of both businesses and schools, the president told reporters that, “I was surprised by his answer. To me it’s not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools.” Trump also commented that, “Now when you have an incident, one out of a million, one out of 500,000, will something happen? Perhaps. But you can be driving to school and some bad things can happen, too.”
The idea that Dr. Fauci’s answer was “unacceptable” begs the question of what makes it so. He is, after all, an expert on the subject on which he speaks; the president is very much not. The quality that obviously taints Dr. Fauci’s response in Trump’s eyes is its truth. The president seizes on the idea that the coronavirus doesn’t harm children, which in the first place is not true (witness the many cases in New York of a coronavirus-related inflammatory syndrome) and in the second, ignores the role that children can play as vectors for the disease even as it generally does not sicken them nearly as much as adults. That the president would ignore, or be ignorant of, this crucial aspect of re-opening schools is staggering. He considers himself the person in government who, unlike Dr. Fauci, can provide “acceptable” answers, yet they are based not on science or facts, but the overriding need to protect his power at all costs. He feigns expertise and a special understanding of scientific reality, but what he demonstrates instead is a profound stupidity and unforgivable callousness towards American lives. “Unacceptable” is the wrong word to describe Dr. Fauci’s expert opinion, but it’s the right one for the president’s nonsense and its deadly consequences.
And let’s not overlook the very important point that Dr. Fauci and Dr. Redfield aren’t some rogue outsiders bent on destroying Trump’s presidency, but actual members of his administration.
As I said yesterday, the president’s mind-boggling refusal to acknowledge reality is sustained in great part by the willingness of the GOP to embrace a similar fantasy view of the world, in which the coronavirus is an overhyped threat, and in which Democrats are interested solely in using the coronavirus to destroy the economy (the president tweeted as much on Monday). And so Republican senators used their time with Dr. Fauci to ask questions that should embarrass any American with a passing knowledge of this pandemic. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee proclaimed that the nation has sufficient testing “to begin going back to work” (a lie), while Rand Paul of Kentucky insisted that children should return to school (like the president, ignoring the role that children can play in spreading the disease — a particularly embarrassing argument to make, given that Paul is a doctor, or at least claims to be).
The president and the GOP are engaging in a strategy that’s breathtakingly cruel and almost certain to subvert their obsessive goal of goosing the economy in time for the November election. Sure, you can let businesses open while infection rates are rising and testing remains far below necessary levels, but this doesn’t mean Americans will start shopping again. I suppose the GOP’s next step is to enforce American consumption by means of creative penalties — for example by docking our future Social Security income by whatever amount we selfishly refuse to spend in the present.
And if that fails, they can always resort to the more coercive arts of their armed allies, the gunmen who’ve threatened Wisconsin legislators and vowed to defend Texas businesses that defy shutdown orders; only now, instead of just arguing for a premature relaxation of coronavirus restrictions, these bearded buckos will go direct-to-consumer, forcing us at gunpoint to shop the local Walmart, to dare the inside of a nearby Starbucks, to stop at the CVS down the street for a solitary, gratuitous tube of toothpaste. Though I doubt they will be content even then. As we hesitate too long in choosing between Crest and Colgate, distracted not for the first time by the legendary rivalry of those iconic brands, I see these militia of capitalism offering barbed opinions about our slow decision-making, urging us to make a choice and be done with all the shilly-shallying, sliding off the safety of their AR-15’s in frustration as our continued indecisiveness enrages them further. . . honestly, it’s really hard to make those guys happy.