Needed - vaccines against not only Covid-19 but also the populist virus

ONE of the powerful forces that has helped populists win power in recent years has been a public backlash against the corrupt "elite" whose members were allegedly trying to subvert the will of the "people" which the populist leaders claim to know.

In that context, leaders like outgoing US President Donald Trump have lashed out against the shadowy Deep State and its bureaucrats and challenged the wisdom of the experts, who by definition include scientists, doctors and epidemiologists. Indeed, a major reason for the failure of Mr Trump and other populist firebrands to respond effectively to the pandemic has been their disregard for the advice of their own scientists on how to curb the novel coronavirus.

Hence President Trump not only downplayed the warnings of leading scientists about the pandemic but disparaged their advice on how to deal with it, like the wearing of face masks, while promoting quack cures, pulling the United States out of the World Health Organization (WTO), and exploiting the public's fears by appealing to emotion, and scapegoating foreigners and, of course, the elites.