Wednesday, April 29, 2020

How governments handle good news and bad news





       The goal of government - any government - is to maximize power, control, and popularity.  In the pursuit of this universal goal, anything goes.

      If good news happens, then government's instinctive response is:  how can we spin this in order to take all the credit?  Usually, they find a way, and spin it they do.  So if, for example, the economy improves, or some new innovation makes life easier for everyone, then of course it happened because of our superb governmental leadership!

      Handling bad news is a bit more complicated, but there are still options.  The classic technique is to find an enemy, or a scapegoat; a "they", if you will.  Other nations make great enemy scapegoats.  Some examples:  Our enemies are planning to attack us!  Foreigners are stealing our jobs!  Other nations are competing unfairly!  "They" have the wrong style of government, or worship the wrong god, and besides they don't look like us or talk like us!

      If it's not feasible to find a foreign scapegoat to blame, then the fallback strategy is:  hide it or lie about it.  The classic example of this approach occurred during the Chernobyl disaster.  The Soviet government repeatedly said:  all is well, nothing to worry about, we have the situation under control. 

      A variation on that strategy is to kill the messenger.  You saw this happen when the Coronavirus first broke out in China.  When a Chinese physician discovered that a mysterious and highly infectious disease was on the loose, the Chinese government had him arrested and jailed.  (He later died in jail.)

      Here in America, our illustrious President regularly follows that playbook.  His favorite scapegoats are the Democrats, the news media, his predecessors, or anyone who dares to criticize him.   He would love nothing better than to silence or severely restrict the news media so they would quit saying negative things about him, or quit asking tough questions, or failing to worship and idolize him.  (But that darn, pesky Constitution keeps getting in the way, dang it.)

      Regarding the Coronavirus, Trump has been all over the map.  First he tried to deny it, Chernobyl-style; it's nothing, all is well, we have it under control, it will go away tomorrow.  When the virus failed to go away, he next blamed it on the Chinese.  In fairness, yes, the Chinese government indeed deserves scorn and condemnation for their attempt at suppressing news of it.  (Side note:  it was the Chinese GOVERNMENT, not the Chinese people, who committed this crime.  Hate and racism directed to Asians is totally misplaced.)

      But blaming it on the Chinese doesn't solve the problem of what to do about it now that it is clearly spreading rapidly across our land.  Next strategy:  get the governors involved in the blame/credit game.  Initially, it was something like this:  if a state's virus cases go down, claim credit, but if they go up, blame the governor.  Then that morphed into:  if a state's economy improves, claim credit, but if it worsens, blame the governor.  Never mind the obvious contradiction here, that nobody has figured out a way to simultaneously accomplish opposite goals of preventing the virus spread AND opening up the economy.

      Remember, dear reader, that protecting your health and welfare never was a true goal of government.  Governments can and will lie and obfuscate and distort the facts to preserve their power and control over us.  Some governments are worse than others, that is true, but no government anywhere is the godly saint that some make it out to be.  During these hard times with global pandemics tearing our world apart, government is NOT your friend.  Be cynical and vigilant of everything. 


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