Justice’s Saturday speech clear as mud; Monday not as bad

Bless his heart, but Justice is not a great orator.

True, in a time like this, actions speak louder than words. But by the same token, in a time like this, people are dependent on the words of officials to inform them about ever-changing situations (and responses) and to reassure them that everything will be OK — eventually.

It is in exactly these kinds of situations that we need great orators. Because Justice’s Saturday speech was not reassuring. At all. (But it did result in a multitude of great memes, and we could all use a laugh right about now.)

After listening to 27 minutes of rambling, mixed metaphors and other contradictions, most of us understood the message to be either: “Be better at social distancing and stop playing bingo” or, “If we don’t do anything differently right now, we’ll end up as bad as New York. But, right now, we are not going to do anything differently.”

The first interpretation, while still rather ponderous, at least gave us some direction (e.g. practice better social distancing). The second interpretation simply left us scratching our heads. If it was so important for our governor to address us on a Saturday evening — so time sensitive that he couldn’t wait until Monday — then why wasn’t he going to do anything differently? Honestly, we all expected him to shut down the state.

During that Saturday speech, Justice explicitly said he had to address us right then because we could not wait until Monday — to apparently make zero changes.

Then on Monday, he finally announced the shutdown we’d been waiting for.

Thankfully, Monday’s press conference was far more articulate. We were rather worried after the weekend, but Monday set us somewhat at ease. Justice’s use of a script certainly helped, and his overall clarity aided by the plain-speaking officials joining him (from six feet apart).

See, when it comes to our government, words must accompany actions. Government officials have to tell us what they are doing or what they are going to do. They owe us that transparency. If people in charge don’t communicate effectively, they can make the situation worse.

How many people didn’t take Saturday’s warning seriously because, at that moment, they couldn’t take our governor seriously?

Fortunately, Justice’s message on Monday was clear: We are closing down everything we can to slow the spread of COVID-19, but we will not prohibit people from living. We can still grocery shop and fill prescriptions. We can enjoy the warmth and beauty of spring as long as we maintain social distancing. We can still call or FaceTime friends and family and keep our social bonds strong.

What Justice tried to say, but couldn’t quite convey in his speeches, is we’re shutting the state down to keep us alive, so when all this is over, we can go back to living.