{"id":118077,"date":"2026-07-29T22:54:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T03:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=118077"},"modified":"2026-07-29T22:54:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T03:54:33","slug":"118077","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=118077","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Fauci Matters<\/a>
\nHe’s not just a powerful guy who acted in bad faith. He’s a totem to a whole class of people who don’t care about that.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is old inside- baseball blogger stuff in part, but there\u2019s a bigger lesson.<\/p>\n

Old time (and I mean\u00a0old<\/em>-time) blog readers may remember Jeff Jarvis\u2019s fierce post-9\/11 warblogging, which pivoted rather suddenly into leftish pro-Democratic blogging in time for the 2004 election. Jeff and I were close before the pivot (he got me my long-ago MSNBC gig), and remained friendly even after. We were Facebook friends from the beginning, though our interactions over the past decade-plus were confined to the occasional like or happy birthday.<\/p>\n

Then the other day I posted this:<\/p>\n

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Jeff\u2019s response was \u201cHe saved lives. What have you done?\u201d My reply was \u201cDid he?\u201d<\/p>\n

A few of my friends came on to suggest, politely enough, that Fauci\u2019s contribution was mostly negative and Jeff abruptly responded \u201cGood-bye, Glenn,\u201d and unfriended me.<\/p>\n

Well, I will survive the shock of that blow, but it struck me \u2014 after all those years of disagreeing on politics,\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0was the straw that broke Jarvis\u2019s back? Anthony Fauci? Especially now, when he\u2019s the butt of self-incrimination jokes? In front of Congress, Fauci wouldn\u2019t even say what color his tie was. (I\u2019m trying to talk one of my distiller friends into putting out a limited run of Fauci whiskey, with the slogan \u201cTake the Fifth!\u201d)<\/p>\n

Why Fauci, and why now?<\/p>\n

I think the answer is that Fauci, and Faucism, represented the apotheosis of what the managerial\/academic\/journo class desires: An excuse for sweeping power, based on (alleged) expertise, in which they could ride roughshod over those stupid proles and flyover people while preening about the allegedly superior moral and intellectual qualities that justify their rule.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then it turned out that they were wrong about nearly everything and \u2014 as Fauci\u2019s diaries demonstrate \u2014 knew it at the time, at least at the top. And their overreach is one of the things that gave us Trump 47.<\/p>\n

That this is out in public now produces cognitive dissonance. The easiest thing to do is to check out of the discussion. And so. Well, goodbye, Jeff, if by chance you\u2019re reading this. I never stopped liking you, but I confess I liked the pre-pivot Jeff better. Enjoy your life as you are now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why Fauci Matters He’s not just a powerful guy who acted in bad faith. He’s a totem to a whole class of people who don’t care about that. This is old inside- baseball blogger stuff in part, but there\u2019s a bigger lesson. Old time (and I mean\u00a0old-time) blog readers may remember Jeff Jarvis\u2019s fierce post-9\/11 … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,14,79,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucraps","category-editorial-o-the-day","category-government","category-health-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118078,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118077\/revisions\/118078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}