Joe Biden should lock in an election win by taking a New Zealand-style ‘unapologetically bold’ approach to managing Covid, writes Wisconsin political correspondent John Nichols. Republished by permission of The Capital Times.
OPINION: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern accepted her landslide election win with a message for her country and the rest of the world:
“We are living in an increasingly polarised world, a place where more and more people have lost the ability to see one another’s point of view. I hope that this election, New Zealand has shown that this is not who we are. That as a nation, we can listen and we can debate. After all, we are small too lose sight of other people’s perspective. Elections aren’t always great at bringing people together, but they also don’t need to tear one another apart.”
Ardern did not explicitly mention this year’s highest-profile election. But it was hard not to recognise in her victory speech a nod to voters in the United States, especially when she said, “This has not been an ordinary election and it’s not an ordinary time. It’s been full of uncertainty and anxiety. And we set out to be an antidote to that.”
Since taking office three years ago, Ardern has governed as the alternative to Donald Trump. She has confronted white nationalism, racism and xenophobia. She responded to a mass shooting that killed 51 Muslim worshippers by leading the charge to ban semiautomatic weapons and implement sensible gun control regulations.
And she has met the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic with the necessary combination of “science and solidarity” that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has identified as the formula for success.
That response has been so starkly distinct from Trump’s lies and neglect that the New Zealander has become a folk hero for thinking Americans.
The New York Times, which editorialised last year that “America deserves a leader as good as Jacinda Ardern,” summed up sentiments regarding New Zealand’s response to Covid-19 by explaining:
“As the pandemic has spread fear, disease and death, national leaders across the globe have been severely tested. Some have fallen short, sometimes dismally, but there are also those leaders who have risen to the moment, demonstrating resolve, courage, empathy, respect for science and elemental decency, and thereby dulling the impact of the disease on their people. The master class on how to respond belongs to Jacinda Ardern.”
Ardern’s approach to the pandemic has not been a radical one. It’s been a necessary one. And it has worked. New Zealand flattened its Covid-19 curve by early May and it has maintained its safe-and-healthy status with considerable success since then.
Biden and Democrats — especially in battlegrounds such as Wisconsin — should amplify their commitment to take every necessary step to control the virus that has killed 225,000 Americans.
A country with just under five million people, New Zealand has reported fewer than 2,000 coronavirus cases and 25 deaths. By comparison, Wisconsin, a state with a population of 5.8 million, has had more than 175,000 cases and roughly 1,600 deaths.
The island nation’s use of lockdowns and other strict measures has been so successful in controlling the virus that – at a time when the U.S. is struggling with a deadly surge that has seen hotspots develop in Wisconsin and other states – New Zealand has in many senses returned to normalcy.
Now, New Zealand voters have placed a bid stamp of approval on Ardern’s efforts. In a country where prime ministers have historically had to pull together multi-party coalitions in order to govern, Ardern’s Labour Party won 64 of 120 seats so it could govern without a coalition. Massey University professor Claire Robinson declared the result “one for the history books.”
The size of Labour’s win will matter because, while Ardern managed crises well during her first term, she will now be called on to keep a bold promise to “build back better from the Covid crisis.”
Democrats should finish the 2020 US campaign with a “science and solidarity” message that aims not just to beat Trump, but to out his partisan co-conspirators with a result that is “one for the history books.”
As the Prime Minister recognises, her government must seize “our opportunity to build an economy that works for everyone, to keep creating decent jobs, to up-skill and train our people, to protect our environment and address our climate challenges, to take on poverty and inequality, to turn all of the uncertainty and hard times into cause for hope and optimism.”
If that “build back better” line sounds familiar, it should. Biden has framed much of his fall campaigning around the same message. As Election Day in this year of Covid-19 approaches, he should double down on it.
New Zealand and the United States are different countries, and Ardern and Biden are dramatically different political figures. Yet, the New Zealand result offers a lesson that an unapologetically bold response to the pandemic, and to the economic challenges that extend from it, is both practically and politically wise.
Biden and Democrats — especially in battlegrounds such as Wisconsin — should amplify their commitment to take every necessary step to control the virus that has killed 225,000 Americans, infected almost 8.5 million and is currently surging at record levels in states across the country.
People are sick and tired of the lies, the mismanagement and grotesquely irresponsible behavior not just of Donald Trump but of Republicans like Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
Democrats should finish the 2020 US campaign with a “science and solidarity” message that aims not just to beat Trump, but to out his partisan co-conspirators with a result that is “one for the history books.”
* Republished by permission of The Capital Times, Wisconsin.
