Dr. Anthony Fauci continued his long-running routine of moving the COVID goalposts when he was asked over the weekend about the prospect of Americans “gathering for Christmas.” Fauci dropped what has become his go-to phrase, saying it’s “too soon to tell,” before offering the always moveable goal: “We have to concentrate on continuing to get those numbers down and not try to jump ahead by weeks or months and say what we’re going to do at a particular time.”

Fauci’s “wait and see” language is deliberate for two reasons. First, he wants to avoid the problem of declarations that don’t aren’t allowed to come to pass. Recall that Joe Biden declared on July 4: “Today, while the virus hasn’t been vanquished we know this: It no longer controls our lives. It no longer paralyzes or nation. And it’s within our power to make sure it never does again.” A mere two months later, Biden was ordering his infamous vaccine mandate, threatening Americans’ freedoms and livelihoods all in the name of combating COVID.

Biden was inadvertently right about one thing: It’s not COVID that’s controlling Americans’ lives; it’s his authoritarian diktats. The American spirit that Biden ironically invoked in his Independence Day speech is a spirit that is opposed to precisely the kind of government tyranny his administration has pushed. And one of the biggest supporters of Biden’s authoritarianism has been Fauci.

Fauci’s second reason for using “wait and see” language is that it keeps the COVID panic alive. Keep people scared, because it’s easier to control them.

There are many ways to do that, but Fauci dropped what might be the most chilling statement yet from a government bureaucrat. Defending Biden’s COVID vaccine mandates — mandates, by the way, that just months prior Fauci claimed would never happen — Fauci said, “There comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision for the greater good of society.”

There hasn’t been a single tinpot dictator in world history that wouldn’t wholeheartedly agree with Fauci. This is the very hubris undergirding every authoritarian’s justification for power lust. This view epitomizes the mindset of an elitist.

Fauci was recently confronted by radio host Hugh Hewitt, who wanted to know if Fauci would essentially put into practice what he was calling on all Americans to do. After listing the myriad of examples in which Fauci has been demonstrably and repeatedly wrong throughout the COVID pandemic, Hewitt asked, “Is there a point where you will say: ‘I have done more harm than good because people don’t listen to me anymore’ and step aside?” Fauci answered, “No. Absolutely, unequivocally no.”

Fauci’s failure to acknowledge his own complicity in undermining Americans’ trust in government officials, medical professionals, and scientific research is reason enough to place him in lockdown until this era of government malfeasance has passed.

Update: Flip-Flop Fauci does it again. Complaining that his comments over the weekend were “taken completely out of context,” he explained, “The best way to ensure that we’ll be in good shape as we get into the winter would be to get more and more people vaccinated. That was misinterpreted as my saying, we can’t spend Christmas with our families, which was absolutely not the case.” He wasn’t taken out of context; he was asked a specific question and he dodged. Now, he says, “I will be spending Christmas with my family. I encourage people — particularly the vaccinated people who are protected — to have a good, normal Christmas with your family.”