Dr. Fauci, don’t let Trump fire you. Resign today!

Note from Tom: I am revamping my spreadsheets in light of what I learned writing yesterday’s post, as well as some other considerations that came up today – so there’s no Numbers section below. I should be finished with the revamp and have the section tomorrow.

Dr. Fauci, you didn’t take my advice to resign last week, but I certainly hope you will today. Trump made it very clear yesterday that he’s considering firing you for having the audacity to say publicly that, if social distancing had been imposed earlier, a lot of deaths would have been prevented. Of course, this is 100% the truth, but – as I hope you finally realize – this president has never prioritized the truth over whatever story he wants to tell to try to save his re-election prospects (which are somewhere between -50% and -100% right now, but that’s another story). And he never will do that, either.

You need to beat him to the punch, Dr. Fauci. You should do the following:

1.       Don’t call Trump and ask him if he wants you to resign. The only reason he hasn’t asked you to resign so far is that you’ve been much more useful to him inside the administration than outside of it, since the fact that you have sometimes kinda sorta laid the facts out clearly to the people – while still not pressing the president to the limit to do what I’m sure you realized he needed to do – has given the comforting illusion to about 80% of the American public that one of the people guiding Federal policy at the top actually pays attention to the facts and lets them guide his recommendations (Earth to the 80%: There’s only one person guiding Federal policy – if that’s even the correct word – related to the coronavirus response, and that person isn’t Anthony Fauci).

2.       If you call him, you would need to tell him you want him to do what you know needs to be done: a) He needs to publicly admit TODAY that he has made a lot of mistakes up until now, and commit that from now on he’ll pay attention to experts like you, rather than just do it when it serves his interest; and b) He needs to drop all his talk of loosening up the economy in the near future. Until we have widespread testing and a TOTAL lockdown has been in place for at least a month, we can’t even start deciding when to loosen up; of course, neither of these conditions is anywhere close to being realized now. And of course, you will say he needs to do this or you will resign immediately.

3.       What will Trump do? Fortunately, we’ve had a lot of experience with how he treats people who are unhappy and want to resign in his administration so far – he tries to pre-empt their resignation by announcing he’s fired the person. If you call him, he’ll either agree to do what you say (and then he won’t do it), or he’ll ask for a few hours to think about it (which you will have to give him). And then he’ll announce that he’s fired you.

4.       So just resign now. Write a letter and send it to the press at the same time you send it to Trump.

5.       What should the letter say? It should admit that you’ve in far too many cases pulled your punches and not pressed forcefully for what you knew at heart was needed – such as a total lockdown now. You did this because you mistakenly believed that your influence would might at least make the situation more tolerable, so that the country could squeak by without imposing a total lockdown. But you now realize that a) he doesn’t even accept all of the mild advice you’ve been giving him; b) he will never admit he’s made a mistake (as has been his consistent policy all of his life, let alone since becoming president); and most importantly c) anything short of total control over the virus will fail in the end because of two words: exponential growth. Even if the half measures brought us down to just 100 reported cases, as was the case at the beginning of March, we would still end up about a month and a half later with the same number of cases (over half a million, and growing rapidly) and deaths (over 20,000, and also growing rapidly) as we have today. We will only be saved – or rather, on the road to salvation – when there’s widespread testing, and there are no new cases.

6.       Because of this, you respectfully need to resign. And by the way, don’t then stain this letter with any compliments about Trump’s leadership, as you’ve done again and again recently – since you, like everyone else in this administration, know that Trump won’t listen to you, and will most likely fire you if you don’t do that (of course, that’s one of the main reasons we’re in such a terrible situation now). As soon as you decide to resign and send the letter, you’re free of that man forever! After so long of having to adjust to the political whims of the guy at the top of the Federal government, this will at first be hard to understand – I’m sure of that.

Once you’ve done this, Dr. Fauci, I predict you’ll feel as if the weight of the world has been lifted from your shoulders. Then you can say what you really think to the public. And that’s when you’ll really start doing some good. I’ll look forward to your first press conference as a free man, hopefully tomorrow.