The core premise of this argument seems to be that if Fauci had taken a hard line, the greater medical community would have stuck with him and done everything he suggested after he was fired and replaced with a sycophant capable of far worse. I don't buy it. Even if the medical community listened (which isn't guaranteed and which I find unlikely), the public at large wouldn't. It was far more beneficial to have someone publicly walking a fine line, not lying but refusing to endorse the Trump administration's lies, than to have a unified government leadership telling us all to go out in crowds to Starbucks to buy hydroxychloroquine lattes.

I agree, even the mask ‘fiasco’, they clearly wanted to prevent a run on masks and definitely botched the messaging, but if that’s the worst, in this unprecedented pandemic, he’s done well. I will also defend Birx; Trump is so mercurial that they both had to make sure they stayed in the room. I don’t get the feeling either of them, Birx especially enjoyed the attention.

They didn't "botch the messaging". They lied. The article covers this blatant lying.

Who lied more and threatened to fire them for telling the truth?

This whole essay is asinine and offers no constructive feedback. We are better off with Fauci being a soft mascot than getting fired or pushed out and some Trump puppet having taken his place.

I agree. Intense political pressure from half of the country would have immense negative consequences on whatever Fauci would try to accomplish. He would have instantly lost any credibility with half of Americans who listen primarily to Trump.

If Fauci divorced himself from Trump, and the two took opposite stances on masks, can we really conclusively say the public would be more willing to listen to the truth about masks? By playing "both sides" he gets to have greater influence, maybe not in the medical community, but certainly on the public at large.

If Trump took a harder stance on HCHQ and replaced Fauci with someone who was also pro HCHQ, do you think the public would be more likely to listen to Fauci who took an opposite stance?

Which truth?

If we take the premise of the article, that Trump was anti-mask and Fauci was pro-mask (although slower than we would have liked, either by mistake or by political pressure) - I'm referring to the truth being pro-mask, what Fauci, the WHO, and the CDC ended up advocating for.

See my sibling comment, our government and our Fauci's were strongly anti-mask too.

The article, and this site is very US centric. The issue is much broader ( and/or deeper ).

Taking that perspective as a starting point - the implication is that the government agents will not be honest and forthright in emergencies. I might be jumping ahead on the argument that, because I already believed this. But I think it follows fairly easily.

If the government is going to lie by omission in an emergency, why should Fauci be held up in any way as a trusted authority figure, role model or person to be admired? Surely we should be searching for figures who are forthright and unflinchingly honest and listening to them in the pandemic instead.

YouTube was putting pressure on people who didn't toe the WHO/Local Government advice. Why is that legitimate if there is a compelling argument that if one of the most visible and trusted faces of the government, Fauci, wasn't being straightforward and vocal?

The medical community in the West was wrong about masks. WHO recommended masks before that.

Bottom line this had been a political decision in every country, except Sweden. The environment is and should be stronger than the individual.

How much power did Fauci actually have to implement things? I think he took the wrong stance re. masks during the early stages (following the WHO's lead) but for the rest, it looked more to me like he was threading the needle between supporting Trump's inanity and getting evicted by the same (thus ending any chance he might have had to influence policy).

O.k : Fauci, Trump, Biden. Fair enough.

But the whole saga has played out exactly the same throughout the West. Look at the UK or the EU in general.

We might not have our Trump's, but we have our Fauci's and they behaved exactly the same.

> But the whole saga has played out exactly the same throughout the West.

We went into lockdown today with our first case of community spread since April. The saga has 100% NOT played out exactly the same throughout the West. Australia has had 909 deaths; my state (WA) has had 9.