Several days ago, my brother, an avid listener of the Blaze, texted me and asked if I had heard of the new book by Steve Deace and Todd Erzen called Faucian Bargain: The Most Powerful and Dangerous Bureaucrat in American History.
As it so happens, I had. American Greatness senior contributor Julie Kelly had been promoting the new book on Twitter. And if Julie was praising it, I figured it must be good.
I figured correctly.
Yesterday, I sat down to read Faucian Bargain and burned through the entire book in less than four hours. Not because it is simplistic, mind you. But because it is so well-crafted and compelling, I couldn’t put it down.
Though, I confess, there were times while reading it I didn’t so much want to put it down as hurl it angrily across the room. But since I was reading it on my iPad, I thought the better of it.
The self-inflicted destruction of our nation over a respiratory virus from which 99% recover will go down as the worst, most avoidable tragedy in the history of this country.
And it was due, in large part, to one unelected, unaccountable lifetime government bureaucrat named Anthony Fauci.
Deace and Erzen make it clear in Faucian Bargain that the problem isn’t Anthony Fauci specifically, but the government’s ever-expanding Bureaucratic State in general.
Fauci is not the disease but the symptom. He’s the construct of the Matrix, at worst an Agent Smith if you will, not the Matrix itself. For our federal leviathan to exist and sustain, it requires multitudes of figureheads such as a Fauci. And if Fauci weren’t there to step to the microphone, it would’ve just been someone else.
The likes of Fauci within the DC swamp are, well, legion.
Faucian Bargain begins by taking you on a trip down memory lane – point-by-point going through the ever-shifting, contradictory positions Fauci presented with equal certainty.
It’s no more deadly than the flu. It’s ten times deadlier than the flu.
People shouldn’t be walking around with a mask. You should double-mask even if you’re vaccinated.
Given his whiplash-inducing shifts in positions, it’s a wonder Fauci doesn’t wearing a neck brace along with his Washington Nationals novelty mask.
It was reading through the compiled examples of Fauci’s fact-free alterations in “guidelines” that prompted my first urge to hurl my iPad across the room.
None of Fauci’s later pronouncements seemed to be based in science or facts. Instead, they seemed to have a whiff of self-serving opportunism.
Or, as the authors put it:
We’re not saying Fauci just gloms onto whichever narrative will expand or increase his authority and/or stature, whether scientifically valid or not, but we are saying there is an odd pattern of it looking like he does.
And, really? When you see it all laid out in one book, it is difficult not to arrive at the same conclusion.
But the country destroyed its own economy, further divided an already-divided people, and wreaked untold emotional and psychological harm to its children all on the say-so of one completely unaccountable bureaucrat turned media celebrity and near-demigod.
And we did it willingly.
Those of us who had the temerity to question the ever-changing dictates from the wee little bureaucrat were treated as heretics for crying out loud.
It’s utterly insane. And yet so many in this country, even now, cannot recognize just how insane it is.
Faucian Bargain puts it succinctly:
Beware of easily handing your sovereignty over to the experts, especially without skeptical vetting.
And that was the central problem of the Wuhan panic, was it not?
We surrendered without a thought. And every Fauci utterance – however contradictory – was treated as if he brought it down from the mountain on stone tablets.
One extremely eye-opening chapter of Faucian Bargain is an interview with an anonymous whistleblower(s) called “Veritas” – who offers “the unvarnished view from inside the Trump White House.”
It is clear from this interview that those in the White House task force set up to deal with the pandemic had a front-row seat from which to watch Fauci’s transformation from mild-mannered team player to fame-chasing media whore.
All of us were drinking from a fire hose in those days, so there frankly wasn’t time to closely scrutinize Fauci’s evolving claims. Nor was there anyone inside the White House really capable of doing so anyway. As for his reasoning, perhaps Fauci was simply reading the room. The media room, that is. As time went on, it seemed as if Fauci was at least as concerned with the media as he was the real-time data and science. That’s a pattern that showed up frequently.
Boy, does that sound about right. Even from our vantage point in the cheap seats, most of us saw that transformation unfold.
My friend Martina Markota likes to say “clout is a drug.” Once you start down that road, you are never sated.
It’s human nature, really.
I mean, who among us wouldn’t want to have Presidents, governors, famous actors and cable news hosts hang on our every word? Who among us hasn’t, at some point in our lives, fantasized of being a famous celebrity?
The media, the ResistanceLOL, and Hollywood stars focused on Fauci as their anti-Trump (they did the same with Andrew Cuomo). Fauci provided them with a COVID Hero to counter their COVID Villain, Bad Orange Man. So they built him up and played on his vanity. And Fauci, in turn, gave them what they wanted in order to keep the clout coming.
As “Veritas” explains in Faucian Bargain:
Fauci feeds off the media, and the media feeds off of Fauci. Both of them clinging to each other to make both of them more relevant.
Don’t misunderstand. Faucian Bargain is not an anti-Fauci attack vehicle. Instead, it is a book that offers facts and evidence. It serves not only as a review of the destructive Wuhan Panic and Fauci’s part in it, but also as a cautionary guide to prevent such a travesty from ever happening again.
As the authors say, Fauci is only a symptom.
The larger problem is Americans by and large willingly surrendered their own Liberty and Sovereignty to a completely unelected, unaccountable bureaucratic cog — all in the name of “keeping us safe.”
Every bit of it is insane, but it keeps happening over and over again because too many people have remained drunk on a cocktail mix of relative comfort, denial, cowardice, and sloth to do anything about it.
In many ways, Fauci is a monster of our own making. As the authors write in Faucian Bargain:
Our fear has gifted such authority to Fauci. So even if his lust for fame and power and validation becomes more acutely absurd by the day, it only seems to reinforce his status as savior because for us to consider otherwise would be to admit our partial authorship of this entire grift. Fauci only sold much of America what it wanted to buy, and even now that his documented failure is complete he still has plenty of buyers. And even if there never was an Anthony Fauci to buy it from, too many Americans would’ve just found another snake oil vendor. The heart wants what the heart wants.
There is silver lining in this if you think about it.
This bureaucratic tyranny could only happen if Americans willingly played along. So the reverse must also be true. If Americans stop playing along, if we push back, an autocrat like Fauci cannot control us.
His control over us is due to our compliance, not his own raw power.
The Government might want to operate as though “the consent of the governed” doesn’t matter. But that does not deprive us of that consent — or the power that is inherently ours.
Faucian Bargain reminds us in no uncertain terms that we are a Republic, if we can keep it. And it is up to us — We the People — to ensure our Republic remains.
Here, and no further.
The line must be drawn here.
The answer is us.
I cannot recommend this book enough.
You can find Faucian Bargain in paperback or Kindle at Amazon, as well as Apple iBooks, and Barnes and Noble Nook Store.
