"Science Plays the Subservient Pimp": On Trump and his Beleaguered Medical Advisors

 In 1938, the world is exploding: Hitler elects himself Oberkommando (High Commander) of the German armed forces, Trotsky and Mussolini are skulking about, Kristallnacht and the Anschluss are happening. In England, E.M. Forster reflects on the widening dangers in language remarkably fitted to the roles into which Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci are forced by the Trump administration:  

Tolerance, good temper and sympathy are no longer enough in a world which is rent by religious and racial persecution, in a world where ignorance rules, and Science, who ought to have ruled, plays the subservient pimp.

Ahmaud Arbery gets shot for jogging while black. Meanwhile, POTUS works hard to prevent citizens of Muslim countries from traveling to the U.S. In our medical meltdown, he  wonders whether disinfectant, which "knocks it out in a minute!" would "do something" by injection or ingestion. Randy Rainbow sings: "Just a spoonful of Chlorox makes the temperature go down," and deep in the bottomless dark, we're whistling along with him.

Like so many writers, Forster was trying to find truth in an age that, like ours, seemed devoted to the reverse. 

At least Fauci and Birx are now wearing face masks. Standing behind Trump, they are portraits of common sense and symbols of the ways in which Science has been muzzled, leashed, forced to heal--indeed like a subservient dog, if not a pimp. The two have drawn the line at pimping for POTUS: they just won't say it's okay to open the country, and I'm wondering how long he'll let them stick around. His version of the story will be that they're disgruntled employees, their message "not acceptable."

In Forster's essay, "What I Believe," the portrait of Science as the submissive procurer, tiptoeing around the despot, seems visionary. Forster wasn't just writing about the despots of his day--he was looking to a future  he knew would be marred by a similar set of events. And in that seminal essay, he offers the sad perception that,

Tolerance, good temper and sympathy--they are what matter really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come to the front before long. But for the moment they are not enough, their action is no stronger than a flower, battered beneath a military jackboot.

It's an odd metaphor: tolerance, good temper, and sympathy as soldiers rushing to the front to defend truth. These traits are so often defined as non-combative, but Forster's right to activate them, and equally right to see that the ruthless jackboot of a demagogue--it's almost as if Forster had looked into a crystal ball and seen the current American president--is almost certain to crush the good.

Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their world. I'll take Forster's prescription at the end of the essay too--he rejects religious faith for Montaigne and Erasmus. Fight the good fight, whether books or religion give you strength. Support Fauci (thank you, Brad Pitt!) and Birx (who epitomizes style, substance, and fantastic scarves). I love you both so very much.