Being a Nice Liberal is Getting Harder
After being assailed by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, strictly for political trolling points, Dr. Anthony Fauci made it a point to praise the new attitudes of some Republicans endorsing the Covid-19 vaccines. Republican congressman Steve Scalise who has worked as hard as any conservative to destroy anything with the word liberal cause attached called the vaccine “safe” and “effective” and encouraged his followers to get vaccinated. Dr. Fauci exercised his best liberal instincts and praised Scalise, “I was very pleased to hear Congressman Scalise … make that statement about vaccines,” said Fauci. “That was very helpful,” he concluded.
Dr. Fauci is having over a forty-year career of exemplary service called into question by a former president who fomented an insurrection, and a congressman whom some say masquerades as an eye doctor because his board certification is in question along with news channels who encourage election lies, and disease misinformation; yet Fauci says we are all in this together and all life's both conservative and liberal deserve equal consideration. Dr. Fauci purposefully avoids questions that would reveal his political stance but it is obvious Conservatives think they know his heart and have attacked him on every front.
Before Fauci, there was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who one-time Republican Chairman, now a liberal darling, Michael Steele, decided would be the devilish Republican enemy. Questioned in 2018 by MSNBC’s Joy Reid, a giggling Steele gleefully took credit for redirecting the “vitriol” the TEA Party directed against former President Obama and aiming their ire at Ms. Pelosi. That hatred has lasted over the years not because Pelosi is incompetent but because for the GOP her documented effectiveness is a threat to their power; the Affordable Care Act and the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which arguably helped saved the American economy, are proof of her effectiveness. Yet, Ms. Pelosi imploring her liberal niceties openly called for cooperation with the former president [Trump], “The peaceful transfer of power is the cornerstone of our democracy… we have a responsibility to come together and find common ground,” Pelosi said following the 2016 election. This was in stark contrast to the puckered Republican leaders who called for the failure of President Obama in 2008. I am under no illusions that Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had Donald Trump on their Christmas card list but they exercised liberal decency, at least at the start.
Now that we are in the throes of an impending third or fourth wave of a virus that could kill millions more and has already killed hundreds of thousands in the U.S., the seams of genteel liberal fabric are being stretched to the tearing point. Having to shield myself for months against people refusing to wear masks and whose only objection was ‘Trump told me not to’ was galling. Watching doctors talk about how they had to tell people who refused the vaccine and right before their last breath, it was too late was galling. Seeing a sick man, literally rise from a death bed and whose thanks to the people who risked their lives for his was, the government is not forcing anything on me is beyond galling.
I have listened to and recoiled at my liberal friends who say the “hell with those folks’ and I retreat to my nice liberal instincts and say, no, no we are better than that, but lordy, it is becoming harder every day.
Continue to Vote for Change.
