Note from Tom: I am revamping my spreadsheets, in light of what I learned
writing yesterday’s post, as well as some other considerations that came up
today – so there’s no Numbers section below. I may put that out later today,
but more likely I’ll just revise it tomorrow.
Dr. Fauci, you didn’t take my advice
to resign last week, but I certainly hope you will today. Trump made it very
clear yesterday that he’s considering firing you for having the audacity to
say publicly that, if social distancing had been imposed earlier, a lot of
deaths would have been prevented. Of course, this is 100% the truth, but – as I
hope you finally realize – this president has never prioritized the truth over
whatever story he wants to tell to try to save his re-election prospects (which
are somewhere between -50% and -100% right now, but that’s another story). And
he never will do that, either.
You need to beat him to the punch, Dr. Fauci. You
should do the following:
1. Don’t call Trump and ask him if he wants you
to resign. The only reason he hasn’t asked you to resign so far is that you’ve
been much more useful to him inside the administration than outside of it,
since the fact that you have sometimes kinda sorta laid the facts out clearly
to the people – while still not pressing the president to the limit to do what
I’m sure you realized he needed to do – has given the comforting illusion to
about 80% of the American public that one of the people guiding Federal policy
at the top actually pays attention to the facts and lets them guide his
recommendations (Earth to the 80%: There’s only one person guiding Federal
policy – if that’s even the correct word – related to the coronavirus response,
and that person isn’t Anthony Fauci).
2. If you call him, you would need to tell him
you want him to do what you know needs to be done: a) He needs to publicly admit
TODAY that he has made a lot of mistakes up until now, and commit that from now
on he’ll pay attention to experts like you, rather than just do it when it
serves his interest; and b) He needs to drop all his talk of loosening up the
economy in the near future. Until we have widespread testing and a TOTAL
lockdown has been in place for at least a month, we can’t even start deciding
when to loosen up; of course, neither of these conditions is anywhere close to
being realized now. And of course, you will say he needs to do this or you will
resign immediately.
3. What will Trump do? Fortunately, we’ve had a
lot of experience with how he treats people who are unhappy and want to resign
in his administration so far – he tries to pre-empt their resignation by
announcing he’s fired the person. If you call him, he’ll either agree to do
what you say (and then he won’t do it), or he’ll ask for a few hours to think
about it (which you will have to give him). And then he’ll announce that he’s
fired you.
4. So just resign now. Write a letter and send it
to the press at the same time you send it to Trump.
5. What should the letter say? It should admit that
you’ve in far too many cases pulled your punches and not pressed forcefully for
what you knew at heart was needed – such as a total lockdown now. You did this
because you mistakenly believed that your influence would might at least make
the situation more tolerable, so that the country could squeak by without
imposing a total lockdown. But you now realize that a) he doesn’t even accept
all of the mild advice you’ve been giving him; b) he will never admit he’s made
a mistake (as has been his consistent policy all of his life, let alone since
becoming president); and most importantly c) anything short of total control
over the virus will fail in the end because of two words: exponential growth.
Even if the half measures brought us down to just 100 reported cases, as was
the case at the beginning of March, we would still end up about a month and a
half later with the same number of cases (over half a million, and growing
rapidly) and deaths (over 20,000, and also growing rapidly) as we have today.
We will only be saved – or rather, on the road to salvation – when there’s
widespread testing, and there are no new cases.
6. Because of this, you respectfully need to
resign. And by the way, don’t then stain this letter with any compliments about
Trump’s leadership, as you’ve done again and again recently – since you, like
everyone else in this administration, know that Trump won’t listen to you, and
will most likely fire you if you don’t do that (of course, that’s one of the
main reasons we’re in such a terrible situation now). As soon as you decide to
resign and send the letter, you’re free of that man forever! After so long of
having to adjust to the political whims of the guy at the top of the Federal
government, this will at first be hard to understand – I’m sure of that.
Once you’ve done this, Dr. Fauci, I predict
you’ll feel as if the weight of the world has been lifted from your shoulders.
Then you can say what you really think to the public. And that’s when you’ll really
start doing some good. I’ll look forward to your first press conference as
a free man, hopefully tomorrow.
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