Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s top health advisor, has become one of the most perplexed people in the country. Tuesday night he voiced his confusion to an audience in Seattle.

Fauci told a group gathered for an event at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center that he found it puzzling that so many Americans viewed compelled mask wearing to be a violation of their freedom, as first reported by Fox News.

“When you tell people they need to mask in an indoor congregate setting when you’re in a zone that has a high dynamic of infection — that is looked upon by a lot of people, not everybody, as an encroachment on your freedom,” Fauci said. He added, “We’ve never had that before. It’s almost inexplicable.”

Fauci had similar complaints about people who have been hesitant to receive a COVID vaccination.

“You have people who don’t want to get vaccinated for any of a variety of reasons, ranging from pure anti-vax to just because we’re telling them to get vaccinated,” Fauci said. “We’re in a very difficult situation.”

The situation, as Fauci described it, was one in which only one-third of the country has become “properly boosted.”

“We have 67% of our population vaccinated,” Fauci complained. “Of those, one-half are boosted. That means a third of the people in the country are vaccinated and properly boosted. How could that possibly be when you have a disease that’s killed one million Americans and you have a hesitancy to use a life-saving intervention, which is a vaccine and a booster?

“It seems like — what world are we living in?”

While the doctor’s befuddlement seems easy to cure – the oldest truism in the country is that Americans don’t like being told what to do, think, or say – his speech was peculiar for reasons other than a man of his education level misunderstanding basic human nature.

What is strangest about Fauci’s comments is the fact they seem to have gone virtually unnoticed, or at least not remarked upon, by conservative leaders.

There was a time not that many months ago when Fauci chiding mask-and-vaccine-hesitant Americans – and rejecting the claim that COVID and mask policies were anti-freedom – would have been a powerful fuel for an always conflagrant social media. This time, though, most Republicans who hold elected office were more focused on FBI raids than Fauci complaints.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the unquestioned-albeit-unofficial leader of the anti-Fauci wing of the Republican Party, was mum, likely giving his efforts to help his state recover from deadly and devastating flooding.

Longtime Fauci opponents like Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Mike Johnson of Louisiana had not commented on Fauci’s remarks as of this writing. All clearly view the matter of allegations of the politicization of the FBI and inflation as the more important topics of the day.

In truth, the Republican leaders are likely correct in their lack of reaction. If anything, the absence of outrage speaks to how far away from the public conscience both Fauci and COVID-19 have fallen.

For all the months upon months of intense disagreement about COVID policy, Fauci’s speech barely registered on the American political scale.

Ardent mask and vaccine opponents, as well as journalists paid to monitor public figures, might take note of Fauci’s latest remarks, but the U.S. body politic seems to have moved on.