(This is another in a series of pieces in which I take on the somewhat hopeless task of trying to explain our contemporary politics to confused and anxious people. Wish me luck.  Angry social media people: I don’t argue my ideas online with strangers, sorry, please go to Fox News or MSNBC, they will love you there.)

Several people have e-mailed me this week, puzzled over why Dr. Anthony Fauci, the world’s leading infectious disease specialist, has disappeared from public view.

At the same time, any number of political hacks and fawning lackeys have been all over the media praising the President’s greatness.

They about anything but the Pandemic that shut the country down.

The most interesting perspective came from one woman who e-mailed me to let me know that she knew for a fact that Dr. Fauci had been spirited off to Guantanamo Bay with the other terrorists and dangers to the Republic and had been drugged insensate.

The man we saw at the White House with a mask was a decoy, she assured me. She said Fauci had it coming; he wasn’t loyal to the President.

I thanked her for the scoop. A few years ago, I would have laughed and deleted the message, but this is May 21, 2020, and I did pause to give it some thought.

In Washington, President Trump’s new and very bold idea is that the Pandemic is under control thanks to him, it was really, just another plot by Democrats and reporters to do him harm.

All fifty states are opening up in one way or another, and at yesterday’s press conference, Trump said the nation’s death toll is a “great honor,” since it means we are testing people.

I couldn’t quite follow that, but he once again achieved his goal of gaining some attention. I can’t overestimate his instincts for that.

People are dropping all over the country, but the media is obsessed with the real story: will Trump wear his mask at the Ford plant on his trip there today or not? He never misses to lead them by the nose.

Even if the Pandemic is not over, it is, he said in a tweet or twenty,  mostly a matter involving illegal immigrants, the poor, and older people who live in Democratic states.

It is not lost on him that these are unavoidable and perhaps even timely sacrifices in the stampede for normalcy and re-election.

Let’s see if anybody cares?

This is either the most brilliant pivot in modern political history, or a catastrophe waiting to erupt.

We won’t know for a while. But as of now, I think President Trump might have outsmarted himself stifling Dr. Fauci.

As you may know (and are annoyed to hear), I view Trump as a marketing/media genius. He is not dumb, and he is not crazy.

He has been in trouble ever since he became President but outshines Houdini in his distraction and image skills. He is always the victim.

Fauci, the most respected official, working on the virus, has enormous diplomatic skills and grace, but as an honest and knowledgeable physician, he couldn’t go along with the new plan.

The mind-boggling part of this is that immunologists from all over the world come to America to study under Dr. Fauci, there is no one in this field nearly as prominent or respected as he is.

For him to be sidelined at this critical time in the life of the Pandemic is stunning, and to me, Trump has just removed the one person who gave his wildly uneven leadership credibility.

Trump blew his chance to be a great leader and broaden his base of support; now, he’s scrambling to fall back on his most significant political advantage – a strong economy. That, also, is a long shot for him under these circumstances.

Trump has sent himself up for two potentially fatal disasters: one if the economy doesn’t recover quickly, and two, if the virus worsens, grows, or recurs.

He can’t lie or distract his way out of either of those two things if they occur; he is betting everything that they won’t.

Given his disastrous handling of the virus and his alarmingly weak polling,  he doesn’t have much to lose.

One thing in his favor is Joe Biden, who seems frail, timid, and from another time. He looks utterly helpless to counter Trump’s media mastery and daring. I’m not a seer; I don’t know how that will work out. If the economy is in shambles and the virus is alive, it won’t matter how feeble he is.

I’m trying to understand why, with so many gifted and articulate candidates for President, the Democratic Party came up with the one least likely to survive a one-on-one battle with President Trump. There is a message in there somewhere.

Still and all, silencing Fauci was foolish and unnecessary. I believe Trump will regret it, and since I respect Dr. Fauci and his credentials, I have to think this virus crisis is far from over.

But the pivot leaves no place for an honest public health official. Fauci hasn’t spoken publicly in two weeks.

Trump’s new plan is to stop playing doctor and pretending he’s taking hydroxychloroquine, and get back to safer ground: America is going to be great again, and soon, a vaccine is just around the corner, and no matter what, our booming economy will return, even if we have to sacrifice a bunch of vulnerable and needy people to get there.

And the urban-rural divide is as wide as ever, each one claiming the other doesn’t understand what they are going through. Happy hunting grounds for the Divider-In-Chief.

Someone messaged me the other day saying the problem with rural Americans is that they can’t identify with the suffering in the nation’s cities.

I replied that the other real problem is that urban people and journalists can’t identify with theirs.

Dr. Fauci is already somewhat lost in this turn. He’s appeared once or twice in his mask standing in the White House Rose Garden, a ghostly presence. He is no longer authorized to speak.

Trump is getting his message cleared up:

Everything’s okay, let’s distract the ever willing media and a bewildered and overwhelmed public with every trick in the book: Obama’s a criminal, the Democratic Governors are trying to steal the election, Joe Biden and his son should be in jail, the FBI screwed him – he’s pulled out all of the old favorites, and so far, the media has gone for every one of them.

I wrote several weeks ago that Dr. Fauci, a Truth Teller, would have to go. He’s gone. In the middle of a Pandemic that has killed nearly 100,000 Americans has not spoken in public since May 4, when he was interviewed by CNN Anchor Chris Cuomo.

He has not even been permitted to talk about a possible or eventual new vaccine, which is supposed to happen under his direction.

Silencing Dr. Fauci is essential to the new narrative that the virus is under control, is not really all that bad, and in any case, not as serious as a collapsing economy.

Trump’s supporters agree with him, although not as overwhelmingly as they usually agree with him – they are worried about their kids and mothers.

I think Trump might have outsmarted himself.

His Achilles Heel has always been that he sometimes confuses reality with his own ego and fantasies about reality. He throws so many grenades out at once that nobody can really even keep track of them, let alone hold him accountable.

But the Pandemic is different.

And so is Dr. Fauci. Had Trump managed the virus in the same way Governor Andrew Cuomo or Ohio Governor Dewine has, I think he would have locked up his re-election.

This time, people really wanted a leader, not a bullshitter or disrupter.

And a leader becomes great – Cuomo, Michigan Governor Whitmer, Churchill  – by taking responsibility and telling people what they don’t want to hear and inspiring them or persuading them to do it anyway.

Trump leads in the opposite way. Keep people divided and angry. Choose one side and ride it to glory.

He intuits or is told what his supporters want, and he tells them exactly what they want to hear, even if they are carrying Nazi flags and machine guns to statehouses.

Dr. Fauci, who is believed to know more about infectious diseases than anyone on the earth, doesn’t believe it’s time to get back to normal, or to pretend that this is normal. Trump cannot be contradicted, another potentially fatal flaw.

From what I know of Dr. Fauci – and I have seen him up close – I would bet on him, especially on this issue. He believes the country is taking an enormous risk by blowing off the Pandemic and rushing to open up so quickly.

But Dr. Fauci was his credibility person, his mask,  the presence that people most trusted and admired.

Of all the people on television speaking about the virus, I listened most to him, and then to New York’s Governor Cuomo, who is whistling a very different tune.

If Dr. Fauci is right – and he always has been – the Pandemic will return, and people will get sick and die in even higher numbers.

If that happens, even Trump will not be able to distract people, unless he declares war on China to get back on the top on the news.

If you believe in medicine and science, then Trump has made the mistake of his insanely chaotic yet somehow charmed Presidency.  The Pandemic might just be bolder than him.

We won’t have to guess for too long.

I think Dr. Fauci will be one of those haunting and recurring ghosts, who speaks to us more loudly in silence than he ever did on television.

Still, this is America right now, the White Rabbit seems to be running things.

I couldn’t help it, I googled Naval Station Guantanamo Bay and found the phone number of the base barber.

In my reporting days, I always stopped at the local barbershop when I wanted to find out what was really going on in a town.

And imagine if this woman was right, and I broke the story on my blog?

A gruff sounding barber named Carlo answered the phone right away. I asked how the weather was and introduced myself and then asked him if there was any truth to the rumor that Dr. Fauci was being held prisoner on the base.

He hung up on me.