This op-ed was written by Daniel Linsker
As the world struggles with the impact of the novel coronavirus, it is clear that governments have responded to the pandemic in different ways and with varying degrees of effectiveness. Those governments with populist leaders at the helm, however, have proven to be at a particular disadvantage when it comes to fighting the spread and impact of the virus.
Populist presidents, reliant on their need to constantly convey positive messaging that bolsters their support, have struggled to take the decisive, forward-looking action that the crisis demands. This style of leadership (or lack thereof) will make recovery much harder, and the losses—in terms of human life and the economy—much more severe.
While other countries around the world, like Vietnam, Colombia, and Israel, have learned lessons from the likes of South Korea and Singapore, moving quickly to impose travel restrictions and push for social distancing and mandatory quarantining, populist leaders in the Americas have systematically downplayed the seriousness of the crisis and wasted valuable time in preparing and flattening the curve.
This lack of decisive and coordinated action now means that countries like the US, Mexico and Brazil are seeing disjointed responses, and even contradictory interventions between the federal and the state level, which will invariably lead to a deeper, more-prolonged crisis that will take a bigger economic and social toll. This pandemic is teaching us, amongst other things, that playing catch-up can be deadly.
The populist problem
Why is it that populist leaders, ranging from Donald Trump, to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro to Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), are finding it so hard to respond to the pandemic? The difficulty is rooted precisely in the foundations of their populism.
Firstly, the current wave of populism has seen leaders actively seeking to control the national conversation, usually sending out three or four key messages a day-often devoid of content or of truth—forcing the media and any opposition figures scrambling to disprove or disqualify such messages. By the time there is counterarguing or fact-checking, the news cycle has moved on and the leader then sends a new wave of agenda-setting messages.
The onset of the pandemic has robbed populist leaders of the spotlight and control over the news cycle, as daily news concentrates attention on the spread of the disease and governments’ response to it. Leaders have not given up easily, though, and that has made them seem out of touch well into the health crises. Mexico’s AMLO kept talking about the raffle of the presidential plane and advances to the construction of a new Mexico City airport. Trump kept discussing the “hysteria” being pushed by media and the Democrats in an attempt to undermine his popularity. In hindsight, these look like failed efforts to divert attention and regain control.
People focusing their attention on COVID-19 also presents a big problem for these leaders. The “feelgood factor” or “all is well” narrative that they have persistently cultivated begins to erode and real questions begin to be asked of their administrations’ ability to manage the growing crisis. Leaders of the recent populist wave have consistently sought to communicate: 1) That everything is going well (even if it isn’t); 2) That problems are never too great or too difficult to be solved (especially if they created it in the first place, i.e. Bolsonaro with deforestation and the Amazon fires, Trump and the impact of his trade war); and 3) That anything going wrong is someone else’s fault. Coronavirus, with its undeniable and, in some cases, devastating effects on people’s daily lives, has derailed that messaging. Citizens certainly realize that all is not well.
More than ever, populist leaders now face a credibility problem. Obsession with the spread of the virus is leading the public to seek answers from experts and specialists; and self-isolation provides people with more time to look for information. The new populists all seem to share a disdain for experts and expertise, especially when it runs counter to their politically-attractive yet impractical policy du jour (think Trump’s wall, AMLO’s refinery or Bolsonaro’s environmental policies).
The ongoing health crisis has exposed this trend, as scientists, doctors, and public health officials consistently contradict presidents that are quick to downplay the severity or longevity of the pandemic. Some of these contradictions even played out in real time, during press conferences in which these leaders announced some magic cure (a vaccine to be developed “in a few months”), a short-term problem (it will “miraculously” be over when spring arrives), or suggested that there was no real cause for concern (you can still hug and kiss people; coronavirus is no worse than a “measly cold”).
How will the pandemic play out in these countries?
Steering countries through the pandemic and an eventual recovery will then be the responsibility of leaders who will have lost credibility, as well as the veneer of their “all is well” message. The narrative that allowed people in certain countries to latch on to something they approved of in their leader (the economy is doing well, the corruption of previous regimes was intolerable, there was no alternative, etc…) while disregarding all the caveats of things they disliked, may now give way to harsher judgement. Hopefully, if there is any silver lining, the public might start trusting experts and reliable sources of information again, and will begin to question their leaders more actively.
Either way, populist leaders like Trump, AMLO, and Bolsonaro will each have demonstrated a great inability to manage any criticism, no matter who it comes from or how constructive it might be. On the contrary, they seem to double-down in the face of any perceived attacks or criticism and have built their political rise on the premise of pushing-on with their messianic vision at all costs. Their refusal to learn from the experiences of others, nor to listen to public health experts is not only condemnable but outright negligent.
This does not bode well. If taking the politically and economically difficult but necessary decisions to combat the pandemic at its outset was not an option for these leaders, then how can we expect them to manage the duration of the crisis and steer us into the recovery? If anything, these leaders could become more unpredictable in their politics and more confrontational, at a time when concerted action is required.
Although the pandemic has shown us that there is no perfect solution, other world leaders—despite setbacks—have had the maturity and sense of duty to act decisively and make painful policy decisions in order to save lives. Recovery and a gradual return to normal will not only take time but will also require coordinated action, and well-planned and well-executed policies to minimize the short to medium-term pain. Unfortunately for countries where populism reigns, their leaders’ style means that this pain will likely cut deeper and last-longer that it need have.
Daniel Linsker is a Partner at Control Risks, the global specialist risk consulting firm. He leads the firm’s operations in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean and is a specialist in Latin American politics.
