The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Why Not? -- This is a Great Idea!

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

The great idea comes at the end of tonight's "the bridge - Daily" but you can take a hint from today's cover art.The focus for tonight though is leadership -- something we all crave at a time of crisis. Where can we find it?

and hello there i'm peter mansbridge this is the bridge daily if you've been a long time bridge listener we started this podcast i think it was last august at the just before the beginning of the election campaign. And we were nightly, as you may recall, through the election campaign. Then it went to weekly. And this week we're back on a daily basis as a result of COVID-19. But if you've been there since the beginning, you've probably heard me talk more than a few times about the election campaigns of 1979 and 1980.

And that's partly because, while most of the elections I've done, I've been anchoring them, back then in those two, I was on the airplane. I was covering the leaders. Now, the one thing about the 79 and 80 campaign that I was thinking about today was there was a phrase that was used, slogan really, by the Liberal Party. Remember, those campaigns were Joe Clark versus Pierre Trudeau. And the Trudeau campaign felt they would always win against Joe Clark because they felt they had the better leader. And therefore, they made their slogan, their campaign slogan around that issue. And their slogan was, a leader must be a leader.

Pretty simple, pretty straightforward. Worked once, didn't work the other time. But a leader must be a leader. And obviously there is truth to that. And when you're in the middle of a crisis, you desperately want to hear a leader, somebody who can instill some confidence, somebody who can instill some calm in the midst of what is a crisis, someone who can point you forward to the way beyond, how you're going to get out of this, and give you reason to believe that what they're telling you is not only true, but that it's possible. So here we are in the midst of a crisis. It's a crisis with no borders. It's a worldwide crisis. And we're looking for leaders. So tell me where you see them. All the leaders are trying to take positions on this and try, one has to assume, to help their country out. Some of those leaders have made some bad decisions.

Some have made some good decisions. But who is the example that you look to as the leader? The one who talks to their people in a fashion that exudes calmness and confidence, and you believe them. Well, I'll tell you who my candidate is. Because I just watched her speech that she gave last night in Germany. That's right, Angela Merkel. Angela Merkel, some say, is and has been for the last few years the leader of the

free world because she's strong, she's confident, she makes sense. This is the argument that people use who point to Angela Merkel as the strongest leader there. Now, I don't know how you feel about Angela Merkel, but I asked you to watch her speech last night and compare it to other speeches you've heard from other leaders throughout this crisis. It's, I think, 12 minutes long, so shorter than most of these Bridge Daily podcasts.

And you can find it pretty easily. I think you can also find it at this website, amp.dw.com. So that's amp, as in A-M-P, amp.dw.com. And it's translated, so it's there. And you can listen and watch Angela Merkel. You listen to how she gives that speech to her nation, which is suffering almost as much as any other nation in terms of the number of cases and the problems it's created. She's calm but realistic about the dangers of

what is presented. She's blunt with the facts on that score. And she's reassuring in the way she exudes confidence. I think it's a tremendous example of leadership. And I think for years into the future, well after this is over, and believe me, there will be a day when this is over, people will compare how leaders did. They will judge leaders and how they dealt with this crisis. And my bet is when they do that, they will look to Angela Merkel as the example of how to do these things. Angela Merkel, that woman who in November of 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, I was there.

I was there on the West Berlin side of the wall. The weekend, it all came down in the face of Germany, and eventually Europe changed. Where was Angela Merkel? She was on the East German side, East Berlin. She was a young student, kind of radical of her day she was there desperate to see that wall come down desperate for freedom

she was just a teenager now I didn't know she was there I didn't meet her but I've always found this a powerful moment in her life. And I was, you know, breathing the same air, was not far from where she was. And today she leads her country through another crisis, which she describes in that speech, which I implore you to listen to and watch,

is the biggest crisis Germany has felt since the end of the Second World War. So look for it. We crave good leadership, strong leadership, confident leadership, calm leadership at a time like this. As we should. Yet it seems like so many of us are having trouble finding it. But here's what we should keep in mind. Leaders aren't just those who are sitting with political power. We're all leaders too.

We can show it every day. We can show it in our families. We can show it on our street. We can show it in our communities. And people are doing it. You're seeing leaders everywhere. As I mentioned last night, obviously we're seeing great leadership on the part of our health care workers, whether they're doctors or nurses or hospital administrators or whether they're simply working in the hospital as janitors or floor cleaners. They're showing leadership at a critical moment. Every one of those jobs is so important. You're seeing leadership in the grocery store. Those clerks who are still working. Who are coming in every day. Because you need groceries.

Anyway. You know who I mean. You see them all the time. I want to mention a couple of things. I've got a tremendous amount of mail, so much that I may devote tomorrow night's broadcast just to reading some of these letters. There's lots of good points in them.

But there were a couple who wrote in last night asking questions specifically about India. Why don't we hear about India? It's the second most populous country in the world, more than a billion people. We hear about China. We hear about Japan. We hear about South Korea.

What about India? What's happening there in terms of COVID-19? So I did a little research today. And as of this moment in this week, there's just over 150 Indians who were infected with coronavirus, COVID-19. There are 276 citizens of India who tested positive for the virus, but they were overseas. They weren't at home.

But inside India, only 151 citizens of that country have tested positive. Now, that seems pretty odd when you consider just how many people live in India. Not so odd when you discover that they're only conducting 90, 9-0, 90 tests a day, despite having the capacity for as many as 8,000 tests a day. So far, of their population of more than a billion people, only about 11,000, somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000 have been tested. That's according to the Associated Press.

What's going on? Why would that be? And is this one of those countries where people worry, well, you know, they're not really telling us what's really happening in their country. Indian authorities have sort of justified that testing number as a way to keep a deluge of people from demanding tests, and that the government only has so much money for testing, and it needs that money to combat other diseases like TB and malnutrition and HIV AIDS. Well, you know, maybe that's the case. I don't know, but it's a surprisingly small number.

Surprisingly small. 81,000 in China, which, quite frankly, seems to me impossible for a country of $1.4 billion where this disease supposedly started. They only had 81,000 confirmed tested, and today they didn't find a single new addition to that. If that's the case, that's great news. But it does seem like a bit of a stretch.

One of the other questions was about Russia and what's happening there. Cases have just started to move upwards, but there's only in the hundreds in Russia, which also seems surprising and raises the question of whether or not how much they're trusted. They had their first death from coronavirus

reported earlier today. Italy, I'm afraid there's no good news to report there. Their death toll today went past China's. And keep in mind, Italy has, what, roughly 60 million people? China, 1.4 billion. And it's supposedly where this started. Italy's over 3,000 deaths now when they've passed China. Italy says their high death toll is partly because they have a large elderly population.

Second largest in the world, only to Japan. And that's why they're having problems. Okay. We're going to close on two things. Remember last night? If you listened to last night's podcast, and I hope you did, and if you didn't, it's still there. You can find it.

But I suggested, hey, as some other people have, I don't take full credit for this, why aren't they using cruise ships? Get them cleaned up. Get them disinfected. Put them outside every port of the U.S. from New York to L.A., San Francisco, and use them as hospital ships. Why not?

Well, guess what happened today? I guess the head of Carnival Cruises must have heard this somewhere either listens to the podcast or heard it somewhere else because he called Donald Trump today and offered that very thing and they're looking strongly now

trying to do that but here's how I'm going to close as usual I close with the issue that... What are we doing? There we go, sorry. We close with the World Health Organization's five things that you should do to stay ahead of this. First, wash your hands. Second, cough or sneeze into your elbow.

Third, don't touch your face. Four, stay more than three feet a meter away from others. Some stretch that out further than that, more than just three feet, a meter, away from others. Some stretch that out further than that, more than just three feet. Saying, you know, distancing should be closer to ten feet. And most of all, you know, if you feel sick, stay home. Don't go outside. Please, we can do this. All right, here's how I'm going to close

here's a happy thought I saw somebody suggesting this last night I think it was on Twitter or Instagram but I think it's a wonderful idea and that's why it's on the cover art for today's podcast.

You got Christmas lights? You got them outside still from the Christmas season? Are you one of those who just leaves them there, just turns them off and then flips the switch next December? Well, if you are, or if it's not too much trouble to hang them up, turn them on. We need a bright face out there. We need something to feel good about, to smile about.

You know, and there's nothing like seeing some Christmas lights. Most of our streets right now are so quiet, so dark at night, you know, filled with people in homes who are worried, concerned about themselves, about their neighbors, about their parents. They got a chance to look outside and see some Christmas lights. That just might make a whole lot of difference. So I think it's a great idea, and I'm happy to move it along from where I've seen it already taking shape in different parts of social media.

So why don't we try and get that going out there? All right. A shorter podcast tonight. Around 17 minutes. So we're getting closer. I know some of you felt last night went too long. So we'll try this one out. And remember, tomorrow, barring any other developments,

we'll do a podcast with your letters, your thoughts. And I'm happy to do that because there have been some great ones. There have been a lot of them. And if you want to write and add your thoughts to the list, please do so. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast, at gmail.com. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge Daily.

We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.