“Freedom Over Fauci-ism” is the headline of Tyler O’Neil’s interesting recent article at the Daily Signal. The presence of “Fauci-ism” in the headline made my day.
I had introduced the term at the very beginning of the COVID pandemic in a series of three articles here at American Greatness. The first was called “Fauci-ism: Dream or Nightmare?” With high hopes the term might catch on, I continued to use the term in follow-up pieces: “Following Up On Fauci-ism” and “The Common Sense Alternative to Fauci-ism.”
O’Neil recounts the speech Florida Governor Ron DeSantis delivered recently at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Leadership Summit. In his speech, DeSantis gave the term “Fauci-ism” a big boost:
‘We refused to let our state descend into some type of Faucian dystopia where people’s livelihoods were destroyed and their freedoms were curtailed,’ DeSantis said. ‘No, we chose freedom over Fauci-ism . . . Fauci-ism was wrong. Fauci-ism was destructive. Fauci-ism was responsible for students being locked out of school throughout this country for a year. Fauci-ism was responsible for people being forced to take backs [sic], Fauci-ism was responsible for putting us on a path to some of the economic problems that we see now.’
“We can never let that happen to our country again,” the governor added.
I like how DeSantis uses the term. He goes straight to the core issue of American freedom. As I wrote in 2020,
The takeover of America’s state, local, and federal governments by Fauci and his team is a dream come true for the progressives. Since at least the time of Woodrow Wilson, the progressives have dreamed of and campaigned for an America ruled by experts.
Rule by experts: this is it. How do you like it?
Fauci and Co. have taken control of the lives of individual Americans to an extent that surpasses anything achieved by fascism’s great original, Benito Mussolini.
In O’Neil’s report, DeSantis even gets “common sense” right:
‘Now, none of that would have been possible had we not been the ones [who remained calm] when the world went mad during COVID, when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue,’ the governor declared.
Contrasting Fauci-ism and common sense is astute. So is contrasting common sense and madness. Identifying common sense as a virtue takes the governor to the head of the class.
What we as a country have lived through under Fauci is aptly described as “a Faucian dystopia.” The worst part is that it has long been predictable. C.S. Lewis saw it coming. In his novel That Hideous Strength, Lewis portrayed a future England coming under the domination of men dedicated to brutal rule by the authority of science. Brutal rule by the authority of science is not what the founders intended for America—and we are not out of the woods yet. We are going to need a well-recognized term to help us understand this threat to American freedom, to communicate with each other about it, and to help us recognize it in whatever form it takes next.
I appreciate DeSantis giving the term “Fauci-ism” an assist, and I hope it has a glorious future helping Americans recognize and avoid the next Faucian dystopia which, no doubt, is being planned for us even now.