Let’s be very clear here.
The point of releasing hundreds of pages of Anthony Fauci’s diaries and then dragging him before a tribunal of screeching, media-mongering Republican legislators is not to get at the truth of his actions or motivations during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not to pursue accountability for any actual mistakes made, of which there may indeed be some to consider in the final analysis. It was, after all, a crisis of rare extremity, requiring many judgment calls based on evolving data and interpretations, and nobody was going to get every one of those calls right regardless of their expertise.
The point is that none of the people for whom this circus is being staged are expected to read the released documents or to watch the proceedings in the first place. They are not going to spend time on the details. They are being handed a very basic outline:
- Anthony Fauci kept a personal diary.
- Rand Paul decided to release excerpts of that diary.
- Fauci was called before Congress to answer questions.
- Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions.
After that, the tactic is to repeatedly press the buttons labeled “Remember how angry and upset you were in 2020?” and “Remember whose face you saw while you were angry and upset?”
Then Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham and whoever else is responsible for disseminating the narrative will tell their audience that the diaries contained damning evidence of deep state conspiracy and corruption. Maybe they’ll wrap in a few other unrelated individuals to season the stew — surprise surprise, James Comey, Jack Smith, Letitia James, and Robert Mueller were also involved, as was Barack Obama, as was the Haitian community of Springfield, Ohio. When challenged on their lies, they will shout over their opponents and cut to commercials, and when their audience tells you that the lies are known facts they will have convinced themselves that they personally witnessed evidence that never once crossed their field of vision.
There is nothing else to this. Last week it was communists again, the week before it was transwomen again, the week before it was antifa again, the week before it was DEI again. I have not seen evidence that they have a gigantic, Price-Is-Right millwheel that they spin periodically to decide who the current demon is while they scramble to cover up the latest crime being committed by the president and his inner circle, but I would not be surprised if such a contraption physically exists.
It is physically and emotionally exhausting to have to endure such constant, naked displays of malicious intent. It is even moreso to watch people you know personally fall prey to it, all the while insisting that they’re being nourished instead of being starved.
