Six years after the pandemic began, America remains unable to agree on what happened, who failed, or what accountability requires. In one segment of the nation, Dr. Anthony Fauci is a criminal who allegedly helped finance dangerous research, concealed knowledge about the virus’s origins, misled Congress, and used his scientific authority to protect himself and the institutions he led from public scrutiny. To another, he is a secular saint—a brave physician who guided the nation through catastrophe while enduring abuse from former President Donald Trump, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), vaccine skeptics, and right-wing critics.
During Fauci’s recent testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, he invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times to avoid answering questions about pandemic origins. Senator Paul responded by announcing plans to seek a contempt resolution.
One America heard a confession; the other witnessed a show trial. Neither side changed its mind.
The pandemic claimed more than one million American lives and inflicted profound damage on friendships, marriages, trust in institutions, and the ability to view political opponents as fellow citizens rather than enemies. A prominent historian at the University of California recently stated that no current generation can write an accurate history of the pandemic: “We won’t write it,” he said. “Our kids will.”
This historian noted that future generations might uncover crimes committed by officials now celebrated and condemn those currently deemed saints. They could reveal how institutions operating under fear confused authority with knowledge, consensus with truth, and self-protection with public good.
The author recalls a personal cost: an old college friend, his first real editor, ended their relationship during the pandemic’s early years over disagreements about published work. The dispute was not about the author’s writing but about work he had published elsewhere.
Why did so many Americans turn temporary policies into permanent judgments of character? Why did they allow disagreements over a virus to decide whom they trusted and which friendships they were willing to sacrifice?
Ben Boychuk is an opinion columnist.
