Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to Joe Biden, hasn’t been seen much lately, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Fauci was once the most trusted public official regarding the pandemic. In the beginning, especially, we all wanted to have faith in him. The most significant moment for me that changed my feelings towards Fauci was when he praised New York’s response to the pandemic, despite Cuomo’s utter incompetence and negligence. But like all things with the pandemic, attitudes towards Fauci became heavily politicized. When he pushed universal masking despite knowing that they are not effective protection from COVID-19, the right called him out, and the left bought into the fear. When he lied about herd immunity, the right criticized him, and the left defended him.
Over time, Fauci’s public image has been shattered. According to a recent poll, less than a third of Americans trust Fauci now. Is that why he’s no longer a media darling? Fauci’s sudden absence from our television screens also seems to coincide with polling that shows that Americans have grown tired of COVID and are ready to go back to normal. Fauci’s face has become increasingly absent. While Americans have been ready to move on, Fauci clearly is not. A couple of weeks ago, he warned against prematurely ending mask mandates.
Related: Fauci Says the Quiet Part Out Loud About Ending the Pandemic
So why is Fauci suddenly not in our faces all the time? Could it be that this is part of a long-term strategy by the White House for Fauci to leave his government position?
Last June, Human Events Senior Editor Jack Posobiec claimed that White House sources told him that White House officials were “actively discussing an exit strategy” for Dr. Fauci.
White House staff are actively discussing an exit strategy for Dr Anthony Fauci following the release of his emails yesterday, per WH official
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 2, 2021
This report was never confirmed by another source, but there had been a lot of speculation about Fauci’s inevitable exit. A week before Posobiec’s claim, former Trump administration official Peter Navarro told Steve Bannon on Real Americas Voice that he believed Fauci would be gone within 90 days.
“I want to put this on the record,” he said. “Fauci’s gonna be gone within 90 days.”
That didn’t happen, obviously, but the reason for that may have been the delta variant. As embattled as Dr. Fauci has become, it seems very likely that even Biden’s White House knew that ousting Fauci in the middle of a new COVID wave would have been problematic. Sometimes, people are comforted by continuity, especially when things aren’t going well. President George W. Bush made a similar case in 2004 while running for reelection about changing the commander-in-chief in the middle of a war.
From the very beginning, Dr. Fauci was the architect of our COVID pandemic response—and we’ll be assessing his decisions for years to come. But right now, the public has decided that they’re ready to return to normal, and thus, the highly controversial Dr. Fauci’s tenure at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases might finally be nearing an end. Moreover, by not doing the media hits, Americans can get used to him not being a daily fixture, thus making his exit easier for those whose faith in the government’s response to the pandemic is directly connected to his presence.
If Posobiec’s original sources were right, it’s easy to see that Fauci’s exit depended on America’s being ready to move beyond COVID, and that time has come. Heck, if Fauci’s departure is coming, Biden could announce his retirement and frame it as a sign of our having truly turned a corner on COVID. I don’t care what the narrative is; I just hope I’m right because Fauci’s exit is long overdue.