Grow Up
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who envisions himself in the White House come 2025, needs to grow up. It’s not “Presidential” to verbally abuse teenagers to score political points about masks; even though the Trump years tried to make that “OK”. But that’s what he did, badgering them to remove masks in his presence. Good for one of the kids, who decided to put his mask back on in spite of the Governor’s annoyance.
But this week in a rally, he went even farther, stating about Dr. Anthony Fauci, “…someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac” (YouTube).
Like any effective speaker, DeSantis picked his words carefully. How does a “big man” (I’m not calling him fat, but…those oversized suits) belittle a smaller man? And how does he make Fauci a cartoon character rather than a formidable intellect from Holy Cross and Cornell that would take Yale and Harvard educated DeSantis apart in a debate? Make him an “elf”, then throw-in the dreaded “midget tossing” imagery. And DeSantis has to hurry. Fauci, at eighty-one, is retiring from his Directorship at the National Institute of Health. He won’t be around for DeSantis to “pick on” anymore.
Leading
DeSantis doesn’t really have much of a choice. He has to attack Fauci. The Governor made his national political “bones” in standing up to Fauci and the national strategy for dealing with the Covid pandemic. The “Free State of Florida” went its own way with Covid, and the over 79,000 Floridians dead from the disease have DeSantis’s to thank. More importantly, DeSantis led the Republican “opposition” to the national strategy, giving “cover” to other state governors to take the same stand. That leads to this statistic: of the top twenty-five states in per/capita Covid deaths, nineteen had Republican governors and two more had Republican legislatures that hamstrung Democratic Governors. And DeSantis led the way.
The new Republican talking point is that masking, vaccination, distancing and shutdowns didn’t do any good. They argue that “…we wasted our time, ruined our economy and damaged our children…” by taking Covid precautions. It’s the reiteration of the “…let Covid burn through and kill who it kills, and the living will be fine…” statements that we heard just as Covid reached our shores.
DeSantis and his ilk are demanding apologies for mask mandates, city shutdowns, and school closings. And they are using school closings like a cudgel to elect anti-mask, Critical Race Theory haters to school boards. It’s hard to imagine putting anti-science, anti-intellectuals in charge of education, but that’s today’s Republican Party.
Science
Just as DeSantis and his imitators did their best to destroy America’s attempts to control Covid, Tony Fauci and “science” (yep – science) did their best to protect our Nation. Did they have all of the answers, from the beginning? Of course not. Covid was a new situation, and since the Trump Administration did everything it could to eviscerate the government’s ability to recognize and respond to new viral threats, America was caught flat footed.
Did masks work? Sure they did, the same way the work every day in every hospital in the nation. Did they work around your neck, or under your nose, or as a fashion statement scarf device? Nope – just like the seatbelts don’t work if people don’t wear them.
Did we discover new things about Covid? Sure – thanks to Black Lives Matter. They went out and protested George Floyd’s death, knowing best science said that crowds spread Covid. For them, taking the risk of disease was less important than voicing their outrage. And what we discovered was that Covid transmission was very low outdoors. It took the Black Lives Matter “experiment” to prove the point. And, by the way, if you need the counter “experiment”, look at Donald Trump’s 2020 Juneteenth rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It started an outbreak of Covid in the state. If you’re not sure about that, ask the Secret Service, or Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain. Oh snap, never mind: he died of the Covid he caught at the rally.
Schools
Should schools have been closed? Absolutely, if not for the kids, then for the teachers. And for those who claim that “dedicated, loving” teachers should take Covid risks; remember that even when schools reopened, there weren’t enough substitutes to fill the vacant chairs. If we stayed in school those first months (I was Zooming from my home office as a substitute) we would have faced an even greater teacher shortage.
Being online and not in school, damaged kids’ education. That’s absolutely true, and thank goodness. Teachers really can’t be replaced by a screen, can they. I always knew it, now the country does too. But there is no way to evaluate how many lives were saved by closing schools, especially in those first few months. Kids will get through this, just as kids all over the world get through natural and manmade calamities that interrupt their education. That’s what those living, breathing, capable teachers can do.
I’m not apologizing for trying to do what was right – for me, for my family, for humanity. And just because others are willing to “write-off” the deaths of over a million Americans (so far), I’m not.
Did Dr. Fauci do everything right? No he did not. But he did his best to follow the best science at the time. When that science changed, he was straight-forward in telling us so. And if a bully politician like DeSantis with Yale AND Harvard degrees doesn’t understand that – maybe they should revoke his diplomas. He must have cheated.
If DeSantis thinks he’s going to fulfill his childhood dream of being President, he’s still got some growing up to do. It’s time for “adulting”.
