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That Caligula wanted to appoint his horse consul. That Domitian demanded to be treated like a god. That Nero sang an epic poem, the Iliupersis, while Rome caught fire. The stories of insanity, megalomania and complacency told by Suetonius in “The Lives of the Twelve Caesars” seem too extreme to be true. But, twenty centuries later, two candidates for Caesar strive to overcome them.
This week, Donald Trump proposed ingesting disinfectant to fight the coronavirus. “It removes it in a minute. One minute!” He proclaimed before suggesting that “we can do something like this, with an injection inside, almost a cleaning”, so that the product “gets into the lungs.”
In New York, disinfectant consumption emergencies doubled after the presidential speech; environmental and health authorities, and the manufacturers of Lysol had to make urgent statements warning that ingesting cleaning products can be fatal.
Contradicting all the scientific evidence, Trump had called concern about the virus “a hoax”, had assimilated it to the common flu, and had said it would simply “go away.” Now, he uses his Twitter to encourage his fans to protest on the streets against quarantines dictated by governors in various states.
Brazilian Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro also dismisses Covid-19 as “a flu” and encourages mass protests. Four of his closest aides tested positive for coronavirus, but instead of serving quarantine, the President took to the streets to mingle, with hugs and selfies, in a protest against Congress. This week he fired his Health Minister, who committed the sin of trying to follow the scientific evidence. Bolsonaro then harangued a crowd of religious fanatics and political extremists gathered outside the Army headquarters to call for a military intervention on his behalf.
The two Caesars are megalomaniacs, mythomaniacs and narcissists, but be careful: they do have a strategy. Unable to manage the crisis, they use the tactic of lies and chaos to hide their failure (52,870 deaths in the United States, 3,704 in Brazil, and counting).
“If you can’t convince them, mistake them,” Harry Truman recommended. Trump and Bolsonaro do it by method: they fracture society in two opposing fields, where the evidence ceases to matter and the only relevant thing is faith in the leader. To do this, they destroy the trust of their followers in any source of information, attacking scientists, civil society organizations and the media as enemies.
In March, following Trump, just 24% of his supporters said they were concerned about the coronavirus (vs. 67% of opponents). In Arizona, a Trump supporter heard him on television talking about the alleged benefits of chloroquine, and obediently took chloroquine phosphate to avoid contagion. He died intoxicated.
In Chile, some volunteers assimilate President Piñera and Minister Mañalich with these two Caesars. Former Minister Eyzaguirre says he “sees Piñera similar to Trump.” That is unfair. There is a fundamental difference: both Piñera and Mañalich respect science and consider the evidence in their decisions. Until now, at least, the health crisis has not gone out of control in Chile. Our health system has not collapsed, and the government’s efforts have been recognized by the World Health Organization.
Mañalich is a competent professional, with strong leadership and a master’s degree in Epidemiology. You don’t need to copy the strategies of the Caesars to face public criticism. But that is precisely what he has done. After being denied by the Chinese ambassador, the minister accused the media that published the interview, La Tercera, of “inventing a response that the ambassador did not give.” That is false. Xu Bu replied in writing, and the newspaper transcribed her textual response. Worse still, replicating the bravado of Trump and Bolsonaro, Mañalich said that “the job of the press is to sell things based on inventing lies.”
In an unprecedented crisis like this, nobody has certainties. Authorities grope, trial and error, amid precarious and changing data. Of course they can be wrong.
But the minister seems determined to prove that he has all the answers, even if he must rewrite history. He asserts that patients cannot get it again in a year (the WHO says there is no conclusive evidence in this regard). He gives sharp versions about the importation of fans (which are a thousand, which are 500, which are a Chinese donation, which are a business gift …) He contradicts himself on the suspension of classes. “We have agreed (because) one hears arguments that are reasonable and prudent,” he said when announcing it on March 15. “We never wanted, we never shared the idea of closing schools, never. (…) It was a serious mistake, ”he pointed out on April 21.
The minister would do well to turn a deaf ear to the flatterers who, today as in Ancient Rome, hover around power. The president of Libertad y Desarrollo describes Mañalich as a “giant”, “leader of a feat”, who “does not rest”, and whose management is “admired” in “the whole world”.
Rather, it should address constructive criticism from civil society experts who call for more transparency in the data so that they can evaluate and suggest improvements in decision-making. Like the competent professional that he is, Mañalich would thus follow in the footsteps of the Roman generals, who in their moments of glory made sure that someone whispered in their ears: “Remember that you are only a man.”
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