The White House continues to live in an alternate reality

5min Read

5min Read

Over the past weekend the White House yet again lashed out at Dr Anthony Fauci, a member of the US Coronavirus Task Force, for plainly stating the obvious.

“As a country, when you compare us [the US] to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not”, Dr Fauci stated in an interview with the FiveThirtyEight podcast last Thursday.

Following Dr Fauci’s appearance on the podcast, another member of the Task Force, Brett Giroir, criticised Dr Fauci. He stated that “Dr Fauci is not 100 per cent right and he also doesn’t necessarily, and he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind […] He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view.” President Trump has recently described Dr. Fauci as “a nice man” who has “made a lot of mistakes”.

Do they think he can do no wrong?

If only Trump and the rest of his Task Force held themselves to such a high standard, COVID-19 numbers would unlikely be so out of control. If infallibility is what they expect then he and his Task Force would have been gone long ago. But, of course, we know this is just talk, from an administration who seem to revel in their incompetence.

The fact that Dr. Fauci’s modest, understated assessment was met with criticism by the White House is yet another sign that there is little room for honesty in Trump’s inner circle. They would much rather focus on minor or non-existent issues on the Mexican border, an improving stock market disconnected from the lived experience of the average American, or the latest imagined enemy of the people – the “Radical Left Anarchists” Trump has been tweeting about incessantly.

“Not great” is by any measure a polite way of describing the situation. COVID-19 cases in the US are getting worse, not better.

According to real-time statistics website Worldometer, the US, with almost 3,500,000 total cases of COVID-19, is not far off double that of the second worst affected country – Brazil. In numbers of active cases, the US has over three times that of Brazil with almost 1,800,000. This number of active cases in the US is likely to hit 2,000,000 by the end of the working week.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Brazilian president. Jair Bolsonaro, of Trumpian mould, has a similar dislike for engaging with reality. Crises require real leadership, not window dressing; these two leaders are much more interested in the latter.

One thing’s for sure with the Trump administration – things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Don’t hold your breath on him acknowledging it though.

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