The End Stages Of The COVID Moral Panic

I'm seeing a certain amount of defeatism over Ukraine's predicament, from sources ranging from the never-Trump Red State site to the UK YouTuber demirep/granniopteryx. Part of this, I think, is the difficulty some people are having getting their heads around the bigger picture.

For instrance, as the meme above suggests, I think the short-lived Canadian state of "emergency" and Putin's invasion of Ukraine are two symptoms of a bigger trend, the closing window of opportunity that had existed during the COVID moral panic. Let's recall that the short-lived "emergency" Trudeau declared was layered upon state after state of "emergency" already declared by federal governments, provinces, states, counties, cities, towns, and local health departments in North America and everywhere else throughout the COVID panic, which as we speak are still being overtaken (or not) by events.

For instance, the US Senate voted just yesterday 48-47 to cancel the US COVID national "state of emergency". Almost certainly the House will defeat an equivalent motion there, and President Brandon's handlers will ignore it anyhow, but it's an indication of where things are headed, if not today, if not next month, if not next year, then one day. I never thought this was going to be a quick or easy battle.

And let's keep iin mind that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is also a delayed outcome of the COVID panic, since one of its early effects was the election of Biden under conditions imposed by various "emergencies" that inevitably affected the vote and have left a continuing taste of illegitimacy to his presidency. Even the transhumanist Hefnerian Glenn Reynolds noted this morning, “This is what happens when you order a President through the mail."

I don't think anyone can seriously disagree that with the 2022 midterms looming and the US political climate likely to change, Putin saw the coming months as his last window for an invasion -- but with his tanks bogged down in Ukrainian mud as of February, was this a Hitler-size miscalculation based on the imperatives of the calendar?

In fact, I see reasons to agree with Reynolds on his current view of the overall problem:

The world is facing its biggest political/military crisis since the end of the Cold War, and for better or worse, the leadership of its largest countries has serious problems. Probably for worse.

Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, seems angry and out of touch.

. . . Here in the United States, meanwhile, we have leadership problems of our own. President Joe Biden managed to stumble his way through an uninspired State of the Union address in which he confused Ukrainians and Iranians, but he has shown no signs of being capable of the kind of leadership we need.

. . . Everybody knows this, and Democrats aren’t happy about it, but removing Joe wouldn’t help as Vice President Kamala Harris seems to be no improvement.

. . . Behind her in the presidential succession line is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who isn’t looking much better. And as she prepares to turn 82, the likelihood that Pelosi would bring fresh energy to the presidency is low.

(And it’s not just age. We need only look north to Canada to see Justin Trudeau — known to some as Prime Minister Zoolander — demonstrate that the trademark mixture of ineptitude and thuggishness can start young.)

Only in Europe do we see, surprisingly, glimmers of more sensible behavior, as fear of a Russian invasion concentrates the minds of leaders there.

The truth is, throughout the past two years of COVID panic, we’ve seen that the world’s leadership class isn’t up to the task. Now, facing a major diplomatic crisis, we have to hope it will do better. Hope and maybe pray a little.

The leadership class was given a pass -- or more accurately, gave themselves a pass -- due to the COVID panic. The window there is simply closing; faux emergencies no longer cut it in the face of real ones. But I started this blog on the basis of a belief that institutions are resilient, while I understood that it's a struggle for them to regain their effectiveness even so.

I think this is playing itself out now, although as we saw in the crises leading up to World War II, it took time for ineffective leadership to leave the scene and more effective leaders to rise to the occasion.