Yet another reason Donald Trump has to go
Doctor Anthony Fauci is a justly-respected epidemiologist who has advocated the use of face masks to fight coronavirus, and has repeatedly presented scientific evidence that the pandemic is getting worse and not better. Donald Trump has historically ridiculed the use of masks and minimised the coronavirus threat. Trump even made fun of Joe Biden and his wife for wearing masks in public. Only recently has Trump made a slight token concession and agreed that the wearing of masks might be a good idea under certain conditions, and that coronavirus will get worse before it gets better. Trump even went so far as to wear a mask himself. So Dr. Fauci has at last been vindicated in his original warnings and advice and everybody is finally on the same page, right?
Wrong. Dr. Fauci and his family are receiving renewed death threats, apparently for making Trump look like a fool. Because Trump has had to begrudgingly and belatedly make a few miserly concessions toward the wearing of masks and the severity of the pandemic, Fauci and his family must die. At least, that is what is believed in the tiny minds of some of Trump’s most radical bootlicking idolaters. It’s too bad they’re not also working on a vaccine for stupidity.
Trump’s response? He played golf, of course. It’s not like someone is threatening a Confederate statue, or anything. It is now America’s disgrace that a nearly 80 year old man who has worked tirelessly his whole life in Republican and Democratic administrations to keep Americans safe now requires a security detail. The detail is there because enough Americans are offended that this elderly doctor made a child-raping mass murderer look slightly less than perfect.
It’s not like Dr. Fauci’s warnings have been all that draconian, either. Fauci has very carefully walked a line so moderate as to make his warnings almost seem ridiculously placid. For example, in April he cautioned that deaths from coronavirus could be as high as 60,000 by early August. The official number of coronavirus deaths just passed 150,000 as I write this.
Trump, of course, has nothing to say about these Fauci death threats. He’s too busy tweeting about how “illegal” and “unfair” it is that everything about him that’s trending on Twitter isn’t sufficiently flattering. No doubt his fan base is upset about that too. I’m sure they will threaten Twitter too, if they haven’t already.
Trump could come forward and repudiate this behaviour in the strongest terms, but he won’t. Secretly he likes it. Trump is that kind of coward. He wants people to threaten Dr. Fauci because Trump also hates Fauci. He deliberately kept Fauci out of his first coronavirus press conference in months in order to humiliate him. Dr. Deborah Birx, who is more willing to go along with the Trump party line, was allowed to wait outside.
This is why getting rid of Trump is just half the problem. America has a festering internal disease of ignorance that could prove fatal later on. But one thing at a time. America must be done with Trump and it must happen in November.
There are a million reasons why Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United States, this has been another of them. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.