Six years after the pandemic began, America still cannot agree on what happened, who failed, or what accountability requires. We have two Americas divided by Dr. Anthony Fauci. In one, he is a criminal who helped finance dangerous research, concealed what he knew about the origins of COVID-19, misled Congress, and used the authority of science to protect himself and the institutions he led from public scrutiny. In the other, he is a secular saint: a brave physician who guided the nation through catastrophe while enduring abuse from Donald Trump, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), vaccine skeptics, and assorted right-wing maniacs like us.
Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday did nothing to bridge the divide. He invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times rather than answer questions about the pandemic and its origins. Paul responded by announcing plans to seek a contempt resolution.
One America heard a confession. The other witnessed a show trial.
Nobody changed his mind. I doubt anyone could.
My friendship with a former college editor ended during the first year of the pandemic. The dispute was not over anything I had written, but over work I published at another publication. One of our senior contributors had questioned social distancing, masking, and the categorical dismissal of treatments such as ivermectin. My friend believed I was terribly irresponsible for continuing to publish her.
Publishing an argument is not the same as certifying every claim in it, much less demanding that readers accept it. Editors are supposed to permit serious challenges to official consensus, especially during emergencies when government claims carry extraordinary consequences.
I tried to extend an olive branch. I suggested we discuss it over a meal as we had many times during our friendship spanning more than 30 years. He said the prevailing restrictions on social gatherings made that impossible.
The pandemic reportedly killed more than a million Americans (though I am well aware that number is disputed). It also damaged and destroyed things nobody considered at the time: friendships, marriages, churches, businesses, childhoods, trust in physicians, trust in institutions, and what was left of the habit of regarding political opponents as fellow citizens capable of error rather than enemies guilty of unspeakable crimes.
A couple of weeks ago, I had dinner with a prominent historian at the University of California. He lamented how difficult it will be for anyone to write a proper history of COVID. “We won’t write it,” he told me. “Our kids will.”
Thirty years from now, the central figures won’t be around to defend themselves, polish their reputations, or dominate television. The pandemic may finally cease to function as a referendum on Trump, Biden, Fauci, vaccines, masks, and the moral worth of one’s neighbors.
The historians of 2056 may possess evidence we do not have and distance we cannot manufacture. They may uncover crimes. They may vindicate some officials now despised and condemn others now celebrated.
More likely, they will describe institutions operating under fear and uncertainty, staffed by fallible people who confused authority with knowledge, consensus with truth, and self-protection with the public good.
Why did so many Americans become so certain? Why did we turn temporary policies into permanent judgments of character? Why did we allow disagreements over a virus to decide whom we would trust, whom we would shun, and which friendships we were willing to sacrifice?
By then, maybe the two Americas will have become one country again — or at least two Americas capable of sitting down together for a meal. I’m not optimistic, but I’m hopeful.
