After months of denial regarding the spread COVID-19, Donald Trump first embraced the role of being a “wartime president,” then shifted again to wanting the war over immediately, saying, “We don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease.” A chorus of conservative voices quickly echoed him, suggesting older Americans should be happy to die to save the economy “for their children.” Although Trump has temporarily retreated on that front, he appeared to feint toward that message again this week, and we’ll be hearing echoes of it again, repeatedly.
This new line of argument vividly reminded me of the “South Park” episode “Margaritaville,” discussed in striking fashion in Anat Shenker-Osorio’s 2012 book, “Don’t Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense about the Economy,” which I enthusiastically reviewed at the time. “Don’t Buy It” was based on three years of research into how economists, journalists, advocates, think tanks and others think and communicate about the economy, and the breadth of Shenker-Osorio’s research made it all the more striking how well that episode captured a fundamental truth about our pervasive economic confusion — a confusion that’s now deadlier than ever.
That alone was enough reason to want to talk to her. But as it happens, Shenker-Osorio has also just released a COVID-19 messaging guide, which built on the race-class narrative project that I wrote about in 2018. “In moments of crisis, new narratives, new policies and new social behaviors are established,” the guide begins. “How we act and what we say in this moment can help define perceptions, assumptions and policy preferences in our communities, states and country.” Continue reading.