The Bobblehead Dilemma
Over the course of the pandemic, Anthony Fauci has become a cultural obsession. You can, if you so desire, purchase Fauci-themed chocolates, T-shirts, luxury sweaters, yard signs, bobblehead dolls, and votive candles. Fauci, for his part, seems baffled by the attention: “Our society is really totally nuts,” he wrote in an April 2020 email, responding to an online article about “Fauci Fever.”
But he is far from the first government official in recent years to receive this onslaught of adoration. Before Fauci, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was left-of-center America’s unlikely crush and magnet for T-shirt sales; before Mueller, it was fired FBI Director James Comey, whom liberals had reviled just months prior for his handling of the Clinton email investigation. The public servants describing President Donald Trump’s misconduct during his first impeachment had their moment too: Inspired viewers of those 2019 hearings formed a “Fiona Hill Fan Club” for the former National Security Council official.
Politicians have always worked to cultivate devoted followings. Yet as these unexpected subjects of public obsession would be the first to tell you, they are not politicians. They are bureaucrats and functionaries—people who pride themselves on being apolitical, putting their head down, and getting the
