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Here in Washington D.C., Dr Fauci is a messianic figure

May 11, 2021 - 10:35am

Mask wearing and reverence for Dr. Anthony Fauci have become the twin pillars of Washington DC’s civic religion.

Consider what happened in the District earlier this month. Our mayor, Muriel Bowser, and the city’s public health officials decided that the time had come to lift the mask mandate. As of last Friday the city would allow fully the vaccinated to gather inside without a mask.

The order was rescinded almost immediately. The new order then went further, allowing businesses to ask for proof of vaccination. Even more preposterously the city has also enacted a ban on dancing at weddings (nor are guests allowed to stand during cocktail hour).

What exactly is going on here? It seems the thought of returning to some semblance of normalcy is too much for city officials to even contemplate. In DC the civic religion reigns supreme — even of course if that means not, in this particular case, following the science.

It is emblematic of the hyper-cautious attitude of liberals to the pandemic. Born out of a dismay at the former president’s cavalier attitude towards the virus, liberals in blue states like mine have taken their reverence for Dr Fauci to new extremes.

Everywhere you look in the tonier precincts of our fair capital one sees the posters and placards and pictures: ‘Thank you Dr. Fauci!’ A house I passed by in Georgetown even had its front door covered in pictures of the good Doctor.

There is something peculiar about the way in which this new cult of personality has arisen. How have we gotten to the point where the media and many ordinary citizens have taken to treating Dr. Fauci as a kind of divine figure, as an object of veneration and awe? After all, this is a man who said that he wouldn’t travel or eat at restaurants even though he’s fully vaccinated (CDC guidance says that these activities are safe for vaccinated people who take precautions).

Washingtonians refuse to recognise that the time to move along from the Covid crisis is upon us. Following the science is no way to order a society, and it is an even worse way to order your priorities as a human being. Science is not, has never been and never will be infallible. The unctuous worshipping of an aged public health official and wearing a mask on an empty street in the middle of the night is not evidence of morality: it is evidence of foolishness.


James Carden is a contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation. He served as a policy adviser to the Special Representative for Intergovernmental Affairs and the Office of Russia Affairs at the US State Department.

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Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago

These fools remain unaware of the fact that it was Fauci who did a great deal to create the entire crisis in the first place. The US banned gain-of-function research in the US, but Fauci found a loophole through which the US funded this research at the lab in Wuhan. The result, almost certainly, was the lab leak and the insanity of the last 14 months.

Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

The deification of Fauci is part and parcel with the cover up. Who’s going to ask awkward questions of a “national hero”?

Tom Jennings
Tom Jennings
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Harvey

In the US we have over 500,000 Covid related deaths. Those dead have families. Some family members do not have the sophistication to appreciate the subtle irony of having their own government help finance the laboratory from whence covid likely sprung causing the death of their relative and their own home confinement. If this plays out, people will ask.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago
Reply to  Tom Jennings

China did this, not USA. Maybe you want to go back to the very start where China said it was American Soldiers doing training exercises in China who imported covid INTO China, remember that?

Fauci is pure NWO and used this virus for their nefarious purposes, but China gave us covid.

Annette Kralendijk
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Harvey

Sen Rand Paul does. And Fauci does not like it. He gave amusingly slippery responses today.

Dave Smith
Dave Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

His recent spat with Senator Rand Paul made him look shifty. The scenario you outline is looking more likely every day. As to the behaviour of the progressives in Washington that is about their level. Just as far from the frontier spirit of the old US as it is possible to get.
No doubt our Metropolitans wil not be far behind .

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago

It seems the thought of returning to some semblance of normalcy is too much for city officials to even contemplate.
You think? There is a never-ending fear on the left that someone somewhere might be doing something for which they have not been given explicit permission.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

DC Normalcy? What did that look like pre-covid? That’s like a nurse working at Bedlam saying ‘It’ll be nice when things return to normal’.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Haven’t you mixed that up with the definition of a Scotch Presbyterian ?
“The haunting fear that someone somewhere is having a jolly good time”.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
3 years ago

I just can’t work out why a town full of bureaucrats would be so enthralled by rules and guidelines that gave them more power and status than they ever imagined.
Truly a mystery.

Stan Konwiser
Stan Konwiser
3 years ago

Trump has been vilified for not causing a panic in Feb 2020 by not calling ‘hair on fire’ about Covid. Fauci is deified for not causing a panic in March 2020 by saying ‘masks are not needed.’

Fauci has reversed or contradicted almost every statement he has made since then.

The fallibility of ‘science’ has been clearly demonstrated. What can be said about the ‘science’ behind climate change?

Susie E
Susie E
3 years ago
Reply to  Stan Konwiser

Climate change (notice they no longer call it “global warming”) was the original covid… it just wasn’t scary enough for most people to care very much about. The impact wasn’t personal or immediate enough.
It’ll come back into play in year or so as another excuse to limit our travel and record every move we make using digital id. Remember, you will own nothing and you WILL be happy!

Last edited 3 years ago by Susie E
Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
3 years ago

Fauci adoration has become cultish. He is praised for defying Trump, or for being forced by Trump to present science approved by Trump quite a conundrum. Elevated now to the highest science position by Biden who wants to rely on his loyal partisan. Fauci is the highest salaried person in the US government and has earned that by changing his mind a lot. Given his role in funding the research that created the pandemic, along with a reported interest in certain patents, his status is a remarkable product of positive publicity.

David Hartlin
David Hartlin
3 years ago

Ah yes the faucists love the good doctor. It’s like sheep fawning over a coyote.

William Harvey
William Harvey
3 years ago

Thanks to the amazing technical and logistical achievements of the vaccine programs, the US and UK will soon need to rid themselves of these prophets of doom like Fauci. When they do i suspect the snap back will be quite harsh on a few of them. Being the darling of the main stream media is akin to sleeping with a snake.

James Rowlands
James Rowlands
3 years ago
Reply to  William Harvey

They will move on. The next logical “passport” is to be free of herpes, VD, TB and AIDS.
Then how about passports of financial security, freedom from mental issues, drug abuse etc.
And finally…. the green passport of correct opinions…
Once they start on this there is no stopping them

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
Reply to  James Rowlands

Once they start on this there is no stopping them.
That’s what a rational person who has seen govt’s act before would say. You might be surprised by how many are blindly supportive of the passport as though it is contained solely to covid and this vaccine.

Annette Kralendijk
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Yes! So glad some states are banning vaccine passports!

Last edited 3 years ago by Annette Kralendijk
Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

Sicking! I know a guy who just returned from DC, everywhere masks were required – one woman in their hotel refused to let him on the elevator because she said it was too dangerous to share one! Another story was he went out at night to visit a liquor store, the streets were empty but for two guys high on what he suspected was PCB – one tried to get him to give him money and when my friend told him to back off the crazy, stoned, guy threw himself on the ground and began screaming and shrieking wile the other sat on the kerb and watched.

Our Nation’s Capital…. we are goners.

Annette Kralendijk
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

DC has been a disaster for years. Long before COVID. Doesn’t affect the lives of people in more sane places. DC is a tiny piece of the US and most Americans never give it a second thought. We are wide open where I live, no masks, kids in school, restaurants open. It’s lovely. Who cares if these nut bags want to live this way in DC? If it keeps them in DC so much the better.

Last edited 3 years ago by Annette Kralendijk
Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

Wait till they get 2 Senators. Remember the old Mayor of DC, Marion Barry? The one who smoked crack wile in the office? My guess is the Senators will be like the two PCB smokers mentioned above, DC useless thorns in every American.

Annette Kralendijk
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Barry was fantastically entertaining! I believe he was once elected while in jail. You cannot touch that for sheer idiocy.
we would have to amend the constitution to make DC a state and that isn’t happening. Congress doesn’t have to power to vote up a new state. But yes, if it were to happen, they would find the least qualified, least law abiding person to fill the seats.

Walter Brigham
Walter Brigham
3 years ago

Democrats want to reduce actual disctrict to federal buildings. Then the existing geographic footprint can Constitutionally be a state. This takes a lot of gall. I think the left’s insanity will cost them both houses and threat will recede for a while.

Walter Brigham
Walter Brigham
3 years ago

Unfortunately DC has a huge negative impact on sane places.

Sidney Falco
Sidney Falco
3 years ago

They’re cretins. They did the same with Mueller (“in Mueller we trust”). They simply repeat whatever talking points they glean from each other and from late night tv. Absolute cretins.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
3 years ago

Even the NYT has now published an article/comment (“A Misleading CDC number” by David Leonhardt if you’re searching) calling out the gross overstatement of outdoor transmission by CDC (saying “less than 10%” when the stats show more like 0%) and the bizarre charade of the nation’s educated elite ostentatiously wearing masks in uncrowded outdoor spaces.

Alka Hughes-Hallett
Alka Hughes-Hallett
3 years ago

Monty Pythons’ Life of Brian ‘ follow the slipper’ comes to mind .

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago

Or even “The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch”, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

barbara neil
barbara neil
3 years ago

Couldn’t agree more.Perhaps the left are girding themselves against the perhaps-and-yet-to-be-proven involvement of Dr Fauci in the grants to the Wuhan lab? Saints are not so easily tumbled and let’s face it, we can’t have enough of them in uncertain times!