This week was an excellent example of the role reversal that I’ve I’ve been talking (and writing) about for years – the one where leaders follow and followers lead. It hardly ever happens in autocracies. But it does in democracies, all the time.
First the governors. Several announced this week they would eliminate most indoor mask mandate requirements, in some states beginning immediately. As New York Governor Kathy Hochul put it, the number of Covid cases was down and it was “time to adapt.” It’s worth pointing out the governors who lifted the mandates were flying in the face of the continuing recommendation of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, which still says masks should be worn indoors, period.
Why then did these governors decide this week that enough was enough – that it was time in so far as possible to get back to normal? The most obvious reason, and the reason they claimed, was the science, which testified the number of Covid cases was down, and the Omicron variant less severe than first feared.
The less obvious but more important reason is political: the governors knew full well that people were getting fed up. That their constituents were getting so sick and tired of mask wearing they were beginning in growing numbers to flout the rules, to refuse to wear masks even when they were supposed to. In other words, the leaders did not lead, they followed.
Meantime a renegade group of hundreds of Canadian truckers was leading. Making their their leaders’ lives miserable by completely clogging the streets of Ottawa, Canada’s capital. Why the demonstrations? Because the truckers hated the vaccine mandate – “Freedom” was their rallying cry – and insisted it be lifted, immediately.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught flat-footed, initially claiming the protesters were merely a “small fringe minority,” whose demonstrations were “unacceptable.” Ottawa’s mayor was beside himself, virtually begging for mercy as he called the truckers’ protests “the most serious emergency our city has ever faced.” Nor were Canadian leaders the only ones scrambling. The protests were contagious – leading to similar such resistance in France, Australia, and New Zealand, for example. And they were impactful. Because the truckers had completely blocked key choke points, most obviously between Canada and the United States, they had an almost immediate impact on business and industry, especially carmakers, some of whom were forced in short order to slow down or even shut down.
Will the truckers be brought to heel by Trudeau? Not bloody likely. To get the former to fall into line the latter will have to give them some sort of significant benefit – or threaten some sort of significant punishment. The truckers will not simply cave. Trudeau can not simply cave.