Vaccines, Media and the Failure of American Leadership
- McCarthyism
- The assassination of JFK
- The assassination of MLK
- The assassination of Robert Kennedy
- Watergate
- 1970’s Oil & Gas Crisis
- Iran Hostage Crisis
- The Creation of the Rust Belt and Collapse of the American Automobile Industry
- Columbia Explosion
- Iran-Contra Affair
- The Clinton Presidency
- The Bush-Gore Election
- 9/11
- The Election Of Barack Obama
- 2007 Depression
- The Trump Election and Presidency
- The January 6th Uprisings
What do all these events have in common? They cracked the foundation and myth of American exceptionalism in the American conscience. Each one of these events, Americans never imagined could have happened here. They were believed to be fantasies of science fiction novels and murmurings of intellectuals and academics. In actuality, each of these black swan events was the bricks and mortar of a post-democratic, post-industrial, and neopostmodern America taken from a previous idea and failed belief of an America. They were disruptions, destabilizing, and opportunities for reorganizing. More importantly, in all the cases above American’s faith was broken or disheartened collectively and within the zeitgeist of the American conscience.
The road to post-democracy isn’t an apocalyptic event. It is a glacier slide of broken hearts, corruption, and the abuse of power from local municipalities to statehouses to the West Wing leaving fluvial peaks and valleys to be reckoned with. As each event hurled us forward, our belief in those chosen to govern our economies, schools, religious institutions, politics, and even our families receded more. This was combined with a rising cable news industry that not only reported the news but moved from the influence of wonks and bureaucrats to politicos and insiders, creating a democracy of illusions. More than influencing the news they sifted through what could be news and directed opinions, creating patterns of alienation and victimhood. Though entertaining and profitable this led to further distrust of the overall institution of the media and an equal distrust in elections, courts, and the economy, all of which are essential for the flourishing of democracies.
In 2021, we now sit in the jet stream of a pandemic, another oh-too-real fantasy of science fiction novels and academics. We find ourselves in a situation where many Americans distrust the data they are receiving about the pandemic, the vaccines, and their options of treatment from the government and media, hence we have Americans overdosing on horse medicine. Previously we had an opioid epidemic, paralleled with a reverse mortgage crisis that was nestled with a corporatizing of public education, all of which was foreshadowed within minority communities a decade before but underreported or undervalued by national corporate media organizations.
Should we now wonder why many Americans are hesitant to take a vaccine that only until recently was FDA approved? For that matter why many Americans would start thinking that a certain horse medicine was an underreported cure. Combined this with a Trump administration and CDC that could not seem to get on the same page in the middle of the pandemic. The most powerful man in the world and for many Americans, the most trusted health organization in the world can’t agree on what the data means from day to day and publicly disagreeing. This was a failure in leadership.
We’ve gotten to a point where some political leaders in efforts of panic and political theatrics have issued vaccine mandates, with terms such as “vaccination or termination”. Vaccinations mandates by political leaders will not build more trust but create more doubt and for too many Americans it will seem like the continuation of the mantra of profits over people, companies over the country, not public safety.
In a democratic state it’s is fine for the private sector and certain entities within government to mandate rules of employment within their culture and structures but wholesale mandates by government entities to all citizens become worrisome. People understand mask mandates in the way when we speak about budgets of billions, annoying but graspable. Vaccine mandates many Americans have a problem wrapping their minds around like when we begin to speak about spending trillions of dollars, possible but not fathomable.
Vaccine mandates in the short term will not cost the Democratic party governorships or mayoral seats but it will cost them national seats in the mid-terms and in the slightly longer-term a presidency. The lesson here paid in votes, will be Americans don’t like being told what to do. That’s why we drink coffee, not tea, in the morning.
