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Eduardo del Buey
Foto: Reuters
La Jornada Maya

Miércoles 15 de abril, 2020

Last year around this time, Tirant Lo Blanch published my latest book Trump vs. Trudeau: Discursos Opuestos (Trump vs Trudeau: Opposing Discourses). The book explains the differences in style and substance of both leaders in their respective election campaigns in 2015 (Canada) and 2016 (the United States). I concluded that there were fundamental differences between the communications strategies and messaging of both leaders, and now, they are more pronounced than ever.

Donald Trump is a consummate narcissist who has engaged in the politics of hatred and denial, who blames everyone but himself for problems that he has mostly created and who claims to be the only person capable of addressing the myriad challenges facing the United States. He remains bombastic and continually demonstrates a low level of emotional intelligence. He refuses to take responsibility for his actions and their consequences regardless of how provable and egregious they are.

Trump now heads a government tasked with dealing with the worst pandemic in a generation. In this, he is failing terribly.

His messages have been off the wall and centered only in protecting his own personal and political interests. Indeed, he actually celebrated the fact that he was number one on Facebook, and that his press conferences (that are actually replacements for his political rallies that he can no longer hold) are getting great ratings. All of this while thousands die.

He denied the pandemic at the beginning. He continually contradicts the experts that he has on stage with him during briefings. He also continues to refuse to accept responsibility for weakening the government’s ability to address this pandemic by the 2018 elimination of the U.S. government’s specialists in global pandemics simply because they were appointed by his predecessor. He criticizes the Obama administration for its shortcomings while refusing to recognize that he has had three years to set up effective systems to address the current pandemic.

He has sought to divide and conquer. His arguments with state governors and mayors have accentuated the despair of many Americans looking for leaders to speak with one voice. His public arguments with his own scientific and medical authorities on a daily basis have led to some tragic consequences. Some people in the U.S. and abroad took seriously his recommended drug that led to their deaths.

All in all, a poor demonstration of crisis communications management.

The following is a list of Trump’s egregious and contradictory messages on COVID-19 since January 22nd:

• January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”

• February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

• February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

• February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”

• February 25: “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”

• February 26: “The fifteen (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”

• February 26: “We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

• February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

• February 28: “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”

• March 2: “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don’t think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”

• March 2: “A lot of things are happening; a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”

• March 4: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”

• March 5: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”

• March 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”

• March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”

• March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”

• March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.”

• March 6: “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”

• March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus.”

• March 9: “This blindsided the world.”

• March 13: “I really take no responsibility”.

“I really take no responsibility” is the last thing that a leader should ever say in managing a crisis! It underscores Trump’s sociopathic lack of empathy and sums up the values (or lack thereof) that he has held since childhood.

Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has, once again, taken a diametrically opposite tack in managing the crisis and communicating with Canadians.

From the very beginning, he has entrusted leadership of this crisis to scientists and medical experts, and has at no time denied the seriousness of the situation facing Canada and the world. His messages have been spot-on, honest, and simple. To date he has not misspoken or tried to soft-sell the crisis, and at no time has he lied in his messaging about COVID19. His daily press conferences are about policy and empathy and not focused on himself or his political interests.

When his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, came down with the virus, he immediately self-quarantined himself and his family, shared their condition with Canadians, and continued to communicate with the media and Canadians honestly and openly albeit from a safe distance. He continues to govern and lead by using technology and excellent communications skills.

His message to Canadians was “of course it’s an inconvenience and somewhat frustrating. We’re all social beings, after all, but we have to do this because we have to protect our neighbors and our friends, especially our more vulnerable seniors and people with pre-existing conditions.”

Speaking outside his official residence on March 13th (with reporters positioned a safe distance away), Trudeau stressed the central role of expertise in the official effort. “We will continue to make decisions based on recommendations of medical experts, public health authorities and top scientists,” he said. “We’re not closing the door to any further steps but we will make those decisions based on what science tells us. Every order of government is working to stop the spread of the virus. Businesses and citizens are taking precautions. We have outstanding public health authorities who are doing an outstanding job,” Trudeau said at the conclusion of his prepared remarks. “We will get through this together.”

He has worked in tandem with opposition leaders, provincial premiers, mayors, and medical and scientific authorities to provide Canadians with seamless messaging and coherent leadership. He has deferred constantly to the experts, and expedited resources to address the complex matrix of issues arising from the crisis.

Across the border, President Trump’s point person, Vice President Mike Pence, always begins and ends his interventions with a paean to Trump the way North Koreans speak reverently of their Great Leader. Canadian Health Minister Patty Hajdu and Chief Medical Officer Theresa Tam prefer to concentrate on coming clean with Canadians and crafting and delivering their messages to tell the truth on the one hand and resonate with all audiences on the other. Trudeau neither requires not needs their public adulation the way Trump demands it from his minions.

To be fair, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has been an excellent communicator. Unfortunately, however, he has been broadsided by Trump at every turn, leaving the American public with contradictory messages and bereft of knowledgeable leadership at the most senior level of government. He has to walk a thin line between praising trump on the one hand, and getting the truth out to the public on the other. Not an easy task given Trump’s egocentric approach to governance and communications.

In Canada, all levels of government, together with the private sector, have come together to ensure that Canadians are well informed and that policies and practices are implemented in a seamless and competent manner.

In Canada’s case, leadership has come from the top, and one hopes that this will continue.

Contrast this with the United States, where state and local officials have had to act without clear and strong guidance from the White House., and where the President has appeared to be completely divorced from reality and changes the tone and direction of his messages at whim.

At a recent White House briefing, Trump shook hands with everyone and touched and spoke into a microphone that he shared with other speakers. It wasn’t until one executive actually refused to shake his hand and gave him an elbow bump instead that people noticed Trump’s blasé attitude to the reality of the times. He later reluctantly recognized publicly the folly of his actions, but only after widespread criticism in the media. Trump ignores his own experts’ recommendations regardless of the damage that he may cause.

While Trudeau espouses inclusion and unity, Trump has gone so far as to demand that the G-7 label the pandemic the “Chinese” virus – fueling anti-Chinese sentiment that has resulted in violence against Asians in the United States. I agree that the Chinese regime has a lot to answer for with respect to withholding information about the pandemic for two months.

But the Chinese public has no power over its government and it is very unjust to blame it for the regime’s activities. For Trump, however, the politics of hatred and division are the only political strategies in his political arsenal, while for Trudeau a humanistic approach to politics is fundamental.

This is the fundamental difference between both leaders.

Trudeau is leading by example, self-quarantining his family, maintaining a physical distance from the public, speaking the truth, empathizing with victims, and avoiding painting himself or his affected family as victims.

Trump is setting an extremely poor example, making it all about himself, and speaks with few if any facts. His major complaint is about how badly the media are treating him and how perverse governors and mayors are for demanding the very tools that they need to fight the pandemic.

He also lies constantly. During his press conference on the 13th, he announced that Google was creating a “beautiful” platform for all to consult with respect to testing. Google immediately announced that this was not true.

As well, the day before Trump announced that the testing kits were “beautiful” and were available for anyone who wanted one. At the press conference the next day he said that tests were not necessary and only agreed reluctantly to undergo one himself after persistent questioning by the media. However, his experts decry the lack of testing kits and the inability of the administration to ascertain how the virus is spreading and how many people it has actually infected.

Each leader’s communications style and substantive responses to the pandemic reflect their fundamental personalities.

Trudeau’s behavior has been inclusive, open, empathetic, and relatable.

Trump’s behavior, on the other hand, has shown himself to be ignorant, closed-minded, self-serving, and mendacious. He always seems to miss the crucial fundamental element of crisis communications: be first, be right, and be credible.

Actual lives depend on honesty, openness, and competence. They depend on public trust in institutions of governance and in the media. They depend on public trust in its leadership.

Trudeau appears to have kept the public trust.

Trump appears to have lost it, if he ever actually had it.

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