COVID-19 and the failure of Populism

For years I have defined the populist agenda as presenting simple answers to complex questions which in the end prove to be no answers at all.

It has taken a pandemic to prove me right, and I take no pleasure at all that the shambolic approach to the Coronavirus crisis by the two major populist leaders in the Western world has wreaked havoc on their populations and probably cost lives.

United States President Donald Trump and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson must face the consequences for their failure to listen to medical advice, for acting too slowly, and for adopting measures and attitudes that have patently proved to be wrong.

I will be fair and say that more traditional approaches have initially failed to stem the virus’s march in countries as different as Iran and Italy. Only by adopting draconian measures that would be unthinkable in the West has China shown some success in getting COVID-19 under control.

Elsewhere we still have a long way to go — and the missteps by the US and UK Governments may well make the path to recovery that more difficult.

In his excellent summary of the Trump Administration’s failures, Australian academic Nicholas Morieson says the President refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the crisis until an abrupt about face on March 12.

“He not only resisted taking any drastic measures to fight the virus, but actively downplayed the danger it posed, claiming COVID-19 was fake news spread by his political adversaries in the Democratic Party and the media designed to prevent his re-election,” Morieson writes.  

Now, of course, the tune has dramatically changed, with Trump suddenly claiming the country was at war with “an invisible enemy” and calling for the nation to face the threat until “total victory” was achieved.

Since then, he is beginning to claim the enemy is not so invisible, renaming COVID-19 the “China virus”, a virtual encouragement to his more rabid supporters to bombard the internet with conspiracy theories, drowning out any criticism of his own blunders.

In the UK Johnson was ready with his own solution to COVID-19, initially introducing the theory of ‘herd immunity’, allowing the virus to spread slowly, letting a lot of people get sick and recover, thus eventually building up immunity.

What Johnson didn’t seem to grasp was that most people did not want to risk their loved ones and themselves being the minority who inevitably did not recover and died.

US Virologist Akiko Iwasaki quickly pointed out that herd immunity usually works when there is a vaccination available administered under controlled circumstances.

“You don’t rely on the very deadly infectious agent to create an immune population,” she said.

Like Trump, Johnson was quickly back-peddling, claiming he only wanted to try and “flatten the curve” of COVID-19 so health services would not be overwhelmed.

However, he was forced to admit that “herd immunity is not our goal or policy”.

Both the US and the UK are now pursuing traditional measures to deal with the outbreak, but they have arrived at them at a much later stage than the rest of the world. As a result their populations are likely to suffer more, over a longer period.

Their simple answers to complex questions have proved abject failures.