We’ve reached that point in the Wuhan pandemic when we start talking about how the world will change after the crisis passes. The impact on everything from the media to globalism is being reassessed, and prognostications about the future, both good and bad, are being promulgated. But those hoping for improvement are likely to be disappointed, just as those who said “this changes everything” were after the terrorist attacks on 9/ll. To quote Adam Smith, “there is a lot of ruin in a nation,” as stubborn inertia created by entrenched vested interests and received wisdom protect the status quo.
The media’s performance during the virus crisis has been par for the course in their unhinged zeal to damage the Trump administration, which has made the president’s attempt to handle the crisis even more difficult. From claims that Trump called the outbreak a “hoax,” to accusations that his comments about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine were “snake oil,” the media have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on their usual repertoire of fake “facts,” anonymous leaks, bought-and-paid-for “experts,” dishonest editing, and outright lies––even to the point of impeding treatment that might save lives.
Worse yet, they have reinforced China’s propaganda about the origins of the virus and the regime’s claim of great success in fighting it. Indeed, the media have become so shameless that they contradict their own statements in a few weeks or even days––telling the public the virus wasn’t serious, then criticizing Trump for not taking it serious enough while they hysterically portrayed it as the end of times.
One would think that such blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy might lead to reform, particularly given plummeting numbers of viewers and being ranked last in polls about the trustworthiness of public institutions. Not a chance. The degeneration of the media is irreversible, for it has been corrupt for decades now in its partisan biases. In the Sixties, the bias became more open in the coverage of the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Their disdain for conservatives was obvious in their treatment of Republican presidents from Nixon to Reagan to both Bushes.
Given that long record of failures followed by even greater expansion of the “rules-based international order” since the end of the Cold War, it’s unlikely that the Wuhan virus will lead to a significant rollback of that order’s reach and power. Too many powerful interests are served by it––corporations, popular culture, high culture, universities, think-tanks, journalists, and the whole global technocratic elite that fancies itself superior to the parochial citizens of diverse nations. And don’t forget, we the people have become hooked on cheap goods.
I hope I’m wrong, because the reckoning due for China and its globalists enablers is a consummation devoutly to be wished. And if the current economic disaster worsens, we may see a critical mass of voters demand that at least the U.S. as much as possible decouple economically from China. Or we may see a reaction much more sinister and dangerous. But either way, the “new world order,” as George Bush senior called it, will not go gently into that good night.
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What Will Change After the Virus Crisis?
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Wed Apr 15, 2020 3:47 pm
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