Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Universal messaging is almost dead, but there is a Hail Mary out there which might save it: Being honest, concise, and circumspect.
I see two villains in the Covid messaging/policy debacle:
1. The zero tolerance “treat people like children” voices. People saw thru them easily and registered that they were issuing draconian directives assuming people would follow 50% of what was demanded.
2. The “everything is a lie until proven true” voices. They attacked every directive, however reasonable. Wearing a mask and leaving packages outside for three days to allow surface Covid to die were treated with the same level of skepticism. No laddering of quality and saneness of protective measures was allowed.
These two voices feed off each other. They create a vicious whirlpool of dumbness in which people grasp at tribalism as life preservers. (Pathetically, when overwhelmed, they cling to the comfort of groupthink.)
Instead of doing that, the govt could have been honest with the American people about what policies made sense and what ones were overkill, and spoken curtly, officially, with a single voice (as opposed to a legion of them in all sorts of outlets, 24/7). We could do that. We used to do things like that. And it helped create national unity.
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You say that the Trump Administration screwed up the pandemic response with a vicious whirlpool of dumbness. OK. No argument here. If we could elect a new Republican Party not attracted by or beholden to Trump, maybe that would help.
Meanwhile, you are not talking about the state and local adoption of specific rules about things like restaurant closures and mask wearing, rules and decisions which might (or might not) follow CDC guidance but being made at a lower level. Here in California, that means Gavin Newsome at the state level, and the Santa Clara County Health Department for me (mostly).
You object to what they've done because you are tired of wearing a mask and you want things to go back to normal. Is that fair?
