Feuding with Fauci: Instead of fighting COVID, Trump is fighting the experts who can save us from the pandemic

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The United States is barreling towards 100,000 daily new coronavirus cases, with no guardrails and a president intent on killing people in the wake of his own bid to re-election. It's even estimated that Donald Trump's own campaign rallies have had conservatively had a COVID death toll of 700 and cases in the tens of thousands, but the Trump administration, which seems to have been illegally fused with the Trump campaign, continues to pretend that COVID is not a deadly - and deadly serious - issue. To add insult to injury, Trump continues to blame doctors of exaggerating COVID cases and deaths in order to make a buck.

Almost no one at Trump rallies who doesn't sit behind Trump's podium for the cameras wears a mask, there is zero social distancing, and of late, the Donald Trump has been leaving his elderly supporters out in the cold to freeze to death. And just a week ago, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows openly admitted that the Trump administration not only did not have a plan to control the pandemic, but that it did not intend to do so.

Today, the White House is taking out its wrath openly on the country's foremost infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, after Dr. Fauci openly criticized the government's response and predicted that America was headed for a painful winter because of the coronavirus spike we are seeing.

Donald Trump's personal lackies at the White House were also incensed that Fauci dared state the mere fact that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are to be commended for running a campaign complaint with CDC guidance on social distancing and mask-wearing. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is hell-bent lifting all restrictions based on a theory of 'herd immunity,' in which you basically get everyone infected. Those who die or experience lifelong organ damage? Well, those people's lives and quality of life is a price Donald Trump is willing to pay so the stock market keeps climbing. Trump no longer regularly speaks to either one of the infectious disease experts on the White House task force on the coronavirus - that is, Dr. Deborah Brix and himself - Dr. Fauci noted. Instead, Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist with no expertise in infectious diseases, is speaking the 'herd immunity' nonsense in Trump's ear.

Fauci's interview is causing indigestion in the White House, as they released a statement accusing Fauci of essentially going outside the chain of command to point out the catastrophic failure of the task force that he is a part of. And yet, Trump is too afraid before the election to sack Fauci from his position at the NIH, even though he has himself signed a memorandum withdrawing civil service protections from the likes of Fauci.

Dr. Fauci's interview is clearly a direct appeal to Americans to warn us of what is coming and how badly the national response is failing, and that is exactly what is upsetting the White House. Trump and his political flankies are angry that Dr. Fauci is not only not going along with their propaganda about the deadliness of the virus but he also has the gall to tell the unvarnished truth to the public. They want the public to be told a fairy tale that everything is fine (it's not), that COVID is no more serious than the seasonal flu (it is), and that therapies and a potential vaccine eliminate the need for public health measure to slow the spread (they do not). 

Republicans want their fairy tale to be walled off from reality, and for that wall to be built with the piles of dead bodies their incompetence has caused. Evidently for them, a quarter of a million dead Americans is not enough.



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