Trump aligns with the world’s ‘ostrich’ leaders

Last week, Oliver Steunkel, a Brazil-based political scientist, offered a new grouping for world leaders who refuse to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously. He tweeted about an “ostrich alliance”of strongmen with their proverbial heads in the sand, disregarding international advisories and local public health fears. They were, as later enumerated by the Financial Times and The Washington Post’s editorial page, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov of Turkmenistan.

These men are not only linked by their denial of the severity of the threat, but also by a seeming contempt for the panic and concerns of others. Long-ruling autocrat Lukashenko, who recently played in a hockey game before a crowd of spectators, described the global alarm over the virus as a “psychosis” and boasted that no one in his nation would die of covid-19. Ortega reemerged last week after a mysterious 34-day absence. His regime in Nicaragua has resisted imposing social distancing measures and dismissed the virus as an “imported” menace. In Turkmenistan, reports indicate that police have arrested people discussing the pandemic in public, while despotic Berdymukhammedov has refused to cancel a slate of public events, including the Central Asian nation’s annual Horse Day later this month.

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, has raged against the lockdowns imposed by his country’s state governors. And, after a weeks-long public feud, the president fired Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who had repeatedly clashed with Bolsonaro over his hostility toward expert public health warnings. Continue reading.