We're In The "Morning After'" Phase Of A Moral Panic

Not every discussion of moral panics recognizes a final, "morning after" stage, but recent panics like the day care child abuse controversy of the 1980s have clearly had one, in which the media, the legal system, and politicians slowly and reluctantly admit that mistakes were made. The resignation of New York Gov Andrew Cuomo, one of the chief moral entrepreneurs of the COVID panic, followed by the firing yesterday of his enabler brother, is an indication that we've reached that phase.

No matter the ostensible reasons for their departure were allegations of groping. These are conveniently vague, and their enforcement is highly selective -- Bill Clinton got away with far worse, as (so far) has President Biden. We may assume that when it becomes convenient to dispose of Dr Fauci -- and we're approachintg that point -- allegatioins will arise as needed.

Speaking of whom, the man himself seems now to be playing for sympathy. In a documentary relased this past October, he weeps about having PTSD from his experience as an AIDS bureaucrat:

Doctors were watching helplessly as patients rapidly deteriorated. Fauci describes the trauma of those cases in a new National Geographic documentary called "Fauci," which is streaming on Disney Plus.

"It was all bad, bad, worse, bad, worse, bad, worse," he says in the film. "It was just so unbelievably frustrating when you're used to being able to fix things and you're just not really fixing anything."

. . . When the an interviewer asks why Fauci is so affected by the memory, he replies: "Post-traumatic stress syndrome — that's what it is."

It must be bad not really fixing anything. What a feeling!

A headline on Drudge this morning is AMERICANS 'NUMB' TO COVID, but if you go to the link, it's actually more restrained: 'Americans seem to have become numb to Delta': Omicron is coming, but older variant is still driving infections

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has dominated the news since its discovery in southern Africa was announced last week, but it is the Delta variant — which has been in the United States for months — that is still unilaterally driving the current increase in infection rates in parts of the country.

The disconnect presents public health officials with a new challenge: warning Americans about a new strain of the coronavirus while reminding them that an older strain is showing clear signs of resurgence.

. . . "All the news is about Omicron,” lamented Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Science Institute, on Twitter. “As if a major 2nd surge with Delta wasn’t happening.”

But isn't this a backhanded way of acknowledging that the media -- one of the main ingredients for a moral panic -- has cried wolf one too many times? If Omicron were in fact the panic-inducing new phase of the Blsck Death it was hyped to be. wouldn't the public -- another key ingredient of a moral panic -- be in a frenzy? Ohmygoodness, now it's worse than ever!! Ohmygoodness!!b Ohmygoodness!! The media would be running film of overwhelmed emergency rooms all over the world, just like they did 18 months ago. Heck, there'd be a new run on toilet paper.

The problem is that the moral entrepreneurs and the media didn't get the reaction they thought they would, and in fact they didn't get it within days. And in turn it's had the unintended side effect of encouraging people to minimize Delta. But now we're starting to get level-headed advice:

"Let's not live in fear because Dr. Fauci is promulgating things that are unscientific just to scare you," [Sen Rand Paul] said. "If you've been vaccinated or if you've had the disease, live your life and ignore this man and let's hope he can be gone as soon as possible."

If Chris Cuomo is gone, we can certainly hope.