A seemingly thoughtful, honest, and perceptive
feature op-ed ran in yesterday’s New York Times, decorated with high-production-value custom animated graphics, seductively titled, “
In America, if Everything Is a Public Health Crisis, Nothing Is.” Despite its surprising suggestion of soul-searching honesty and its brutally honest headline, it turned out a dud. It was less about repairing the Grey Lady’s tattered reputation and was everything about vaccinating the deep state against an incoming Trump Administration.
Warming to its theme, and properly citing the pandemic as Exhibit “A”, the article correctly stated the fact that “The nation’s public health apparatus is reliant on panic and outrage as a tool for addressing basic problems.” Indeed, without panic and outrage, what would remain of the nation’s public health apparatus, which staggers from one “crisis” to the next “emergency?” But that is only part of the problem. The bigger problem for public health is that during the pandemic, through excessive overuse, its minions exhausted its favorite tool,
fear.
As the article simply explained, “the nation itself
is spent from so much panic and outrage.”
In other words, they poisoned the golden goose. They kept increasing the dosage until we all overdosed on fear manipulation, and vomited up all our residual trust in the public health “establishment.” They turned our fear of invisible bogeymen and our outrage directed at each other into a united sense of fury directed
at them.
So far, so good. But then the author lost the thread. Through a long, rambling essay that provided much useful historical context as raw material, such as the swine flu vaccination scandal, the author ultimately ended up in the rhetorical ditch, advocating as a solution just more consistent and higher funding for public health. The author assumed without evidence that, if better funded, public health would somehow transcend its addiction to fear manipulation, instead of just doing it more enthusiastically and with newer computers and swankier conferences.
Thus, despite an encouraging setup, the author never ultimately challenged the public health behemoth at all. The article never grappled with the ethics of fear manipulation as a public health tool at all. It never even mentioned the historic loss of trust in public health.
To be honest, though I should have known better, it was profoundly disconcerting. What I eagerly expected from the article’s early tone was a stinging rebuke of public health’s fascination with
crisis-ism. But it wound up offering a boring, conventional, liberal prescription for repairing dysfunctional government by making it even bigger and giving it even more power.
It never had enough funding to have a fair chance of working…
Then, another explanation became manifest. This op-ed, which defrauded its tantalized readers by first offering a well-researched takedown of why nobody trusts public health anymore, fizzled out long before it got to anything even slightly critical of the FDA or the CDC. It was really intended to be a carrier for a new anti-crisis narrative. With Trump —and especially Robert Kennedy— about to assume control of public health, now suddenly the New York Times has discovered the dangers of a perpetual, chimeric state of emergency.
In other words, this op-ed is the Times investment of a substantial effort into battlespace preparation, to de-legitimize future conservative claims of any crisis, whether seed oils, untested vaccines, or even stolen ballots and open borders. After four years of happily enjoying Democrats’ forever-crises, they are now scrambling to reset the board, gettin set to argue against any crisis President Trump identifies without sounding hypocritical. You’re abusing emergency powers!
Behold the face of the new anti-Trump resistance. Do not worry, this time we will deploy our own counter-resistance.
NYT preps its resistance public-health narrative; House outlaws male ogling women in restrooms; arrogant Bucks County official walks back outrageous defiance, View ladies leashed in real time; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
