PM Modi owns India’s unfolding Covid disaster: Bloomberg

‘As in so many of the pandemic’s worst-hit countries, this tragedy was avoidable — and is largely the fault of a boastful and incompetent government. Yet, judging by the fate of other bungling far-right politicians such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, the UK’s Boris Johnson, Hungary’s Viktor Urban, and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may well suffer few political consequences for his devastating missteps...

‘Yet, while Trump lost to Joe Biden in large part because of his callous and clueless handling of the pandemic, the margin was disturbingly narrow. Other strongmen look more likely to survive politically — and to continue to add to the toll of needless deaths.

‘For his part, Modi not only enjoys much higher approval ratings than Trump ever did. He has also survived, already, blunders that would have wrecked any other political career: demonetization in 2016 and a botched lockdown last year that caused the biggest and most desperate internal migration witnessed in India since 1947.

‘Modi has flourished with the help of something Trump never had and the likes of Boris Johnson only sporadically enjoys: a compliant media. Indeed, one reason why complacency about the virus spread so widely in India is that Modi personally asked owners and editors of press and television in March last year to focus on “positive” stories. Evidently, as his website put it, “it was important to tackle the spread of pessimism, negativity and rumor.”

Read here (Times of India, Apr 21, 2021)

Unconventional measures for extraordinary times no excuse for more abuse

‘...There are widespread concerns that bolder expansionary fiscal policies are likely to be abused by typically short-termist governments of the day, tempted by macroeconomic (ethno-)populism, and unconcerned about the medium- and long-term consequences of increased spending, borrowing and debt. 

‘Only much better governance, transparency and accountability can minimise harm due to likely ‘leakages’ and abuses associated with increased government borrowing and spending. Such fiscal policies typically involve governments borrowing, especially by selling bonds and other securities, including to central banks. 

‘Publics often presume that governments tax first in order to spend. In fact, they usually spend first, and then tax. Poorly accountable governments often take advantage of real, exaggerated or imagined crises to pursue more populist macroeconomic policies to secure regime survival and benefit the politically well-connected.’

Read here (ksjomo.org, Dec 3, 2020)

How Trump sold failure to 70 million people

‘The president convinced many voters that his response to the pandemic was not a disaster. The psychology of medical fraud is simple, timeless, and tragic... The narratives and tactics Trump used to persuade people to trust him as a sole beacon of truth—amid a sea of corrupt, lying scientists and doctors—draw on those of cult leaders, self-proclaimed healers, and wellness charlatans as much as those of authoritarian demagogues. They have proved effective over centuries...

“Reason is not involved in the process.” The draw is the personality of the healer, and “subsequent success is ensured by mass suggestion.”... If the nation’s public-health and scientific communities assume that the appeal of a quack was some transient aberration—something that will end when Trump is out of office, and that can be remedied with yet more facts—then the Biden administration will fail to reach millions of Americans, no matter how soundly it recites statistics. Its warnings and mandates will go unheeded and become fodder for charismatic outsiders who tell people what they want to hear...

‘There are ways to serve as a confident, optimistic leader without making up nonsensical promises. Hope can be conferred with promises to take care of people, and to be there for them. Reassurance can be offered by guaranteeing that no one will go into debt because they had to go to the hospital, and that people will have paid sick leave and job security so they can stay at home when necessary. If the public-health community does not do more to give people hope and reassurance in the face of this disaster, it will see people defect to those who will—even when they know the promises are too good to be true.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Nov 10, 2020)

Counties with worst virus surges overwhelmingly voted Trump

‘US voters went to the polls starkly divided on how they see President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. But in places where the virus is most rampant now, Trump enjoyed enormous support. An Associated Press analysis reveals that in 376 counties with the highest number of new cases per capita, the overwhelming majority — 93% of those counties — went for Trump, a rate above other less severely hit areas.

‘The US broke another record in the 7-day rolling average for daily new cases, hitting nearly 90,000. The tally for new cases Thursday was on track for another day above 100,000, with massive numbers reported all around the country, including a combined nearly 25,000 in Texas, Illinois and Florida. Iowa and Indiana each reported more than 4,000 cases as well.

‘Thirty-six percent of Trump voters described the pandemic as completely or mostly under control, and another 47% said it was somewhat under control, according to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 110,000 voters conducted for the AP by NORC at the University of Chicago. Meanwhile, 82% of Biden voters said the pandemic is not at all under control.

‘The pandemic was considered at least somewhat under control by slim majorities of voters in many red states, including Alabama (60%), Missouri (54%), Mississippi (58%), Kentucky (55%), Texas (55%), Tennessee (56%) and South Carolina (56%).’

Read here (AP, Nov 6, 2020) 

Will Covid-19 change the global balance of power?

‘Populist parties, which have already used this growing disillusionment [with national and global institutions] to increase their influence and to take power in many countries, are likely to grow stronger. A critical consequence will be that the isolationism seen in the past decade or so will increase with slogans such as “America First”, “Make Britain Great Again” and “Prima gli Italiani” gaining traction.

‘These factors are all pointing to a very different world from what we have been seeing. The traditional powers of the west are neither as strong economically, nor as confident of their social and organizational superiority. China, along with developing countries in Asia and Africa that have better weathered COVID storm, will likely increase their global footprint at a much faster rate that they have been doing in the past decades.’

Read here (IPS News, Oct 5, 2020)

It’s no accident Britain and America are the world's biggest coronavirus losers

‘When the business of government becomes limited to populist set pieces, its ranks are purged of doers and populated instead with cheerleaders. This is how we ended up with the current cast of dazed-in-headlights Tory cabinet members. In the US, the very notion of an “administration” has been worn away. As the New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen puts it, “There is no White House. Not in the sense that journalists have always used that term. It’s just Trump – and people who work in the building”.’

Read here (The Guardian, May 10, 2020)

The British charlatan style has been sent packing by too much reality

‘[The present administration's] time has gone. I am not saying we are about to enter a better age of competent government. Hard times are rarely good times for the centre left and it looks as if we are heading into the hardest of times. Angry people cling to what they have in a slump. They blame foreigners and turn to shop-soiled saviours. Who knows, after populism with a smirk on its face could come populism with the authentic snarl.

‘What’s over is the glib, deceitful spirit of 2016 with its false promise that bills need never be paid. The Brexit right has attempted a final rally. It dismissed warnings about public health as “over the top” just as it dismissed warnings about Brexit as “Project Fear” and assured us that “German carmakers” or some other knight on a shining unicorn would make everything all right.’

Read here (The Guardian, May 2, 2020)