Grandstanding

Jordan For ?

No one is really sure what Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan is running for.  Is his goal the Governorship of Ohio?  Or does he have some plan to unseat Kevin McCarthy and become the leader of the Republicans in the House – with hopes of becoming Speaker some day?  Or, is he so worried about the fallout from his actions as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State three decades ago, that he wants to be invaluable to the “right”.  That way, no matter what he failed to do to protect his athletes back in the day, the right will still support him.

And Jordan has found the focal point for his right wing rage:  Dr. Anthony Fauci.  In a Congressional hearing yesterday, he demanded of Dr. Fauci, almost pounding his fists on the table: “When will we get our freedom back!!!”

He might just as well have said, “when did you stop beating your wife,” to the eminent virologist.  Fauci, rightly, refused to accept the premise of Jordan’s question.  The restrictions of COVID control aren’t about “freedom”, they are about keeping more Americans from dying from the disease.  What Jordan calls “freedom” is really the “right” to hold super-spreader events, and kill people.  And that’s not a right, that’s just stupid.

Fox Whipping Boy

But Jordan has found his “whipping boy” for all the so-called lost freedoms that COVID has caused.  Fauci managed to be the “last man standing” from the original Trump response to the virus.  Other scientists and physicians, and the list is long, were disgraced by the end of Trump’s term:  Birx, Redfield,  and Azar among them.  They lost their credibility trying to navigate science and a President who found COVID an inconvenient  truth.  Fauci, on the other hand, became the alternative to the Trump craziness.  He spoke the truth when the Trump appointees spouted political fiction.  He served an “exile” under Trump, banned from the national press.  And he emerged as the scientific leader of America’s virus response under the Biden Administration.

So Jordan really gets “three for one” by attacking Fauci.  He gets to be a “Trumper” against the one scientist who rose above the Trump Administration.  He also gets to support all those folks who believe that the COVID responses – from online school and church to cancelled Little League Baseball games, weren’t necessary.  And he gets to try to pass the COVID “blame” to President Biden and the Democrats.  And Jordan loves to blame Democrats for almost every evil known to man.

So the facts of COVID really don’t matter much to the former wrestler from St. Paris.  It’s so much easier to follow his Fox News friends and pretend that the almost 600,000 Americans lost in the past year weren’t really there in the first place.  Or that the vaccines, that many of Jordan’s supporters refuse to take, will “solve” all the COVID problems.  Or that Jordan’s version of “freedom” is contingent upon not wearing a face mask.

Masks, not Muzzles

It’s the same version that Senator Rand Paul tried to “sell” in another hearing with Dr. Fauci.  Paul ripped Fauci for wearing a face mask after being full vaccinated.  It was straight from the Facebook “meme”:  “if the vaccine works, you don’t need a mask – if you need a mask then the vaccine doesn’t work”.   

You’d think that having a medical degree would allow Dr. Paul to deal with more complex thought concepts – but those don’t make good “sound bites” on Fox News.  Yes, the vaccine works, better than the flu and the chicken pox  shots.  But it isn’t perfect.  And as it is so new, we don’t know the impact that “variants” of COVID will have (the variants driving the COVID spike in Michigan right now).  So the prudent thing to do is to continue to wear a mask – both for the wearer and those around them.

And while we don’t know what office Jordan is lusting for, we do know that Rand Paul longs to fulfill his father’s dream of winning the Presidency.  So Fox News coverage is mandatory.

Know Nothing

Both Jordan and Paul represent a “Know Nothing” view of COVID – that somehow it was all a hoax on the American people, perhaps designed to bring Donald Trump down. That view is amplified in the “silo” of right wing media.   It’s easy for their constituents in rural fields of Ohio or the Appalachian “hollers” of Eastern Kentucky to pretend that COVID is just a “Democrat” disease.  

But it’s not just a Democratic disease, and Dr. Fauci continues to tell Americans the scientific truth; even when it’s hard, and even when it’s not what Americans “want” to hear.  The advent of the vaccines and the spring are driving the attitude that “it’s all over” – but it’s not.  And the politically motivated protestations of Jordan and others won’t make it so.  We will – by doing what needs to be done to control COVID, and protect the American people. 

And that’s what Dr. Fauci is trying to do.