What’s bugging Trump about Fauci

There's been a growing divide (among a public who is incredibly divided in the first place) concerning which specific element of the Covid-19 pandemic is more dangerous: the public health crisis or the economic devastation.

This debate reminds me of those awful "which was worse: slavery or the Holocaust?" debates that run ramshod in high school cafeterias. Guess what? THEY'RE BOTH TRAGIC. This isn't a competition. Yikes.

But in the case of Covid-19, this debate is very real because there are those who want to "open the country for business" faster than others. Unsurprisingly, in our hyperpolarized times, this has fallen into the usual "Trump/ Not Trump" shorthand. And, not surprisingly, this means that everyone is finding an enemy to point to and blame. One of these enemies is, apparently and without good cause, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

I couldn't wrap my head around why Trump supporters were angry at Fauci, a man who has served the public through every single president since Reagan without so much as a whiff of partisanship, and then it read this article and it explained it fairly well.  

Let's not take the ideological bait. Let's just trust the experts. I know we have an antipathy toward experts in this country, but right now, it's probably best if we not drink bleach because we heard from a friend's cousin's neighbor who works next to a guy who's uncle works at the CDC that bleach kills all viruses. By the way: It doesn't. 

I would have hoped that we would come together in the face of a major crisis. The numbers are horrifying and growing every day. There are now more than 2 million cases worldwide, more than 615,000 cases in the U.S. alone, and with more than 26,000 Americans who have died. That's sadness on a scale that's hard to fathom.

At the exact same time, I have many friends who own their own small business or work in areas deemed "unessential," which is ridiculous and insulting at the same time. Many of these friends have kids going off to college, they have mortgages, they have bills to pay. This is petrifying and difficult; no one is sleeping well.

I guess where I land with this is that both the public health crisis and the economic uncertainty are BOTH awful. We need compassion for a whole lot of our fellow Americans. 

So let's ignore the partisan stuff, think about the information we are given from credible sources, and remember to be kind. Let's listen to experts (medical and financial) and care for those around us. Let's not run around disparaging the people who want us to be healthy and successful; because it's not a competition.