So, our present leadership is a bit confused: Nudge does not include threats. None of this wagging your finger “there will be consequences” talk. When you opt to threats, you’ve just used Nudge to soften people up so that you can then use traditional coercion more effectively. The population is lulled and then blindsided. An ethical leader would have fessed up in the first place: “This is where we want you to go.”

But with our government, the Nudge has become a powerful manipulative tool, and worse, it has facilitated a slithery duplicitous mindset. Sure, gone are the Leave-It-To-Beaver days of traditional threat and reward methods with all of its “toxic masculinity” and “patriarchy;” now we give citizens opportunities to want to behave, to “make the right choice.” But all-too-often we get nothing more than the illusion of choice, where they still set the parameters: Three vaxxes to choose from, instead of just one.

There would have been pushback with just one. Journalists might have checked the conflicts of interest, with just one.

And in these Hunger Games days where we citizens must be protected from ourselves, our leaders spout absurdities like: “The mandate is working; we have a high vaccination rate” and “Canadians stepped up and did the right thing!”

Which really means: Our threats are working. Canadians have done great at complying.