ANTHONY FAUCI, CARPENTER.

The doctor is taking some stick from Our President for treating everything related to the Wuhan coronavirus as a nail to be hammered down.

In increasingly vocal terms, Dr. Fauci has been separating himself from the White House and warning Americans to “hunker down” and brace for a difficult winter — a message at odds with Mr. Trump’s repeated, if false, assurances that the nation is “rounding the corner” on a pandemic that has claimed about 220,000 American lives.

“People are tired of Covid,” Mr. Trump complained on the call, which several reporters were invited into. “I have the biggest rallies I’ve ever had. And we have Covid. People are saying: ‘Whatever. Just leave us alone.’ They’re tired of it.”

The doctor appears to be taking the slagging in stride. "'It’s like in 'The Godfather' – nothing personal, strictly business as far as I’m concerned,' Fauci told Southern California AM radio station KNX1070. 'I just want to do my job and take care of the people of this country.'"  Ultimately, the president has to trade off competing objectives, and it might not be the place of the contagious disease expert to weigh those tradeoffs.

On the other hand, it might be on a contagious disease expert to pay attention to the existential depression weighing on some of our numbers, on the suicidal thoughts entertained by more than a few youngsters.  The closed businesses, or the ineptitude of the state employment security offices in getting the relief checks out are somebody else's domain, possibly the president, and he recognizes what Pajamas Media columnist Stephen Kruiser grouses about, "Maybe too many people have had their livelihoods ruined to eagerly bite at the fear-mongering bait now."

I wonder what roof the doctor will be repairing next month. "[Michigan governor Gretchen "Karen" Whitmer (D-Hell)] told host Chuck Todd that lockdowns and COVID restrictions can end, if Americans just vote for Joe Biden."  Let's see how the epidemiologists address the tradeoffs then.

It is truly stunning to listen to people like Governor Whitmer blame food pantry lines on Trump, when it is Democrat governors and other politicians keeping their economies locked down and forcing people out of work. It is even more stunning to see the amount of people actually buying that “logic.”

These are the same people who claim masks are the only things that can save us, but still refuse to open the economy and let people get back to work, now that masks are pretty much mandated everywhere. If masks are the miracle cure, then why can’t we just leave it at the current mandates and get back out there? The protesters have been free to congregate all summer and fall. The mental gymnastics required to make sense of it all are exhausting.

The winter will be difficult, or not, whether the epidemiologists see it correctly, or not, and whether the politicians like it, or not.