Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/14/the-white-house-is-launching-a.html
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Just the kind of leadership we need during a pandemic: an anti-intellectual, woo-peddling personality cult for a grifter. I’m surprised the regime waited this long to go after Fauci.
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It’s extremely important to note that when this was said, there were not enough masks to even cover the needs of the medical community, much less every citizen. This issue continued through May, which was a large motivation for locking us all down.
Even now we’re going through the motions with masks to a certain degree since N95 masks aren’t freely available to all.
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Seriously, though, I’m surprised it took this long for Trump to lash out. Fauci was gently resistant for quite a while, and did better than most at contradicting Trump’s dumbass face-dribble.
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Trump is an egotistical idiot. If I thought for one minute he was getting ready to switch up to a responsible response to this deadly pandemic and blame his hundreds of thousands of deaths earlier response on Fauci then, while I wouldn’t condone it, I would welcome the sanity. IE., get a new advisor, then “discover” we need to pay people to stay home, we need to mandate masks, we need to be hardcore for a month, then we can get back to more normal.
But I have zero faith that this is even remotely a possibility: it feels like he is being scapegoated so Trump can continue to do the wrong thing even more, resulting in even more unneeded deaths.
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There were also legitimate concerns about proper mask usage by non-medical people. Experts like Fauci tend to be cautious about solutions like this backfiring. Even now I see idiots wearing masks with their noses exposed and other people who adjust their masks endlessly in stores after handling items.
All that said, though, public health authorities have gradually come around to the idea that the more people wearing masks properly, the fewer droplets being spread about. And the moment Fauci comes to this conclusion is the moment his man-child boss goes on full offense.
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Like all cowardly bullies, they lack the spine to come out and challenge him directly or have Trump say these things openly in a way he can be held responsible for. Policy is announced by re-tweeting game show hosts, everything is done through surrogates to make sure nothing is ever a fact–it’s just a matter of opinion in reading the tea leaves. Which is how we find ourselves where we currently find ourselves.
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Going after Fauci is exactly like blaming Ian Malcolm for the escaping dinosaurs.
Also, in this scenario, Donald Trump is Dennis Nedry.
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I’m wondering why Cuomo and Newsom haven’t just offered to hire Fauci for the states that actually want real guidance.
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Trump can’t stand people who are smarter than him. That’s why he has so many enemies.
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Just to be perfectly clear on this point, the non-N95 masks of good quality (tight knit cotton or better) are very effective. The science wasn’t clear on this for a while, but it is now. Let’s be careful not to spread the impression that homemade masks are theater. They are very effective for the general public walking around to prevent spread. This is definitely not “going through the motions”.
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…wish he stared longer
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Don Jr. has already shown us that the Trump family is “irony impaired.”
Saying “Fauci was wrong about this and this” reminds us “Trump is wrong about everything, always.”
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Dunning-Kruger plus narcissism, yeesh. When you make a mistake, it’s because you’re dumb. When I make a mistake, it’s because I didn’t, because I don’t make mistakes.
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I can’t tell if it’s actually blood this administration has on its hands. Maybe it’s fecal matter. Or a mixture of both.
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Even if there was merit to the attacks on Fauci, how is “The most qualified expert on Trump’s task force isn’t so great!” supposed to make Trump look better?
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Given that the White House has been subtly - and not-so-subtly - undermining and throwing shade at Fauci as soon as he said anything that contradicted the president’s nonsense (which was almost immediately), this really isn’t new. It’s more of an escalation, or a more direct attack - as they often relied on third parties to do the attacking for them, previously (and Trump would just re-tweet it).
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N95’s are only better than quality cloth masks if they are properly fit, which is actually pretty damned uncomfortable. They work to protect the wearer, but that flapper valve allows unfiltered exhalation which negates any protection of others. And they are one-time use unless you have access to fairly fancy decontamination equipment. Reusable quality cloth masks are the way to go for the general public, outside of healthcare settings.
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