Government Maintaining Good PR despite zombies

Question

This question is based off an interesting scenario that I began considering while researching XCOM. It's hard to sum up, but the question is inspired by it, so I'll cover it step-by-step:

1. Aliens called Chryssalids, which resemble giant insects kills an unfortunate person.

2. The Chryssalid implants an egg in the victim; the baby Chryssalid within hatches

3. The larva finds the central nervous system of the victim and hijacks it, taking control of the still (somewhat alive) victim and creating a "zombie."

In XCOM, there are serious consequences for killed civilians and soldiers, so some people will have their Psi Operative (a soldier who inexplicably gained psionic powers) Mind Control zombies so they technically don't count as dead (or lost, rather).

Assuming a similar scenario (humans are turned into something like the traditional zombie by parasitic alien larvae, then the resulting zombies are mind-controlled) happens in America, my question is: How Can The Government Maintain Positive PR?

To clarify, the human government is dealing with the zombies (which are created by the alien's insectoid soldier's implanted larvae) by having them mind-controlled; this prevents them from gaining new enemies and gives them a new asset (the new asset being zombies). This is strategically a much better choice than simply fighting the zombies, no?

Additionally, the government has managed to create special implants using alien tech that prevent their mind control-capable soldiers from using it on anything but an alien or zombie, not to mention letting an alien zombify someone (because there is a chance of that happening).

The Issues:

1. Simply hiding the truth will be, for all intents and purposes, impossible. The aliens are attacking civilians (read: committing acts of terrorism) with the parasitic insects, so more than a few individuals will see (and likely record and/or live stream) the alien parasites creating zombies, and the subsequent mind controlling of said zombies.
2. The government is trying to protect its citizens from the aliens (like it should). The problem is, having people capable of mind control and using those powers on zombies (reanimated victims of the alien's cruelty) is going to result in an outcry, a whole lot of backlash from humans rights and anti-government groups, new conspiracy theories....the list goes on and on, and the government will have to keep up their PR so they have the support they need from their citizens despite A) mind control and B) the fact they're using mind control on zombies.

As always, I appreciate your input and feedback, you have my sincere thanks for your contribution. As a final note, if you see a problem and chose to downvote or vote to close, please give me an explanation so I can either improve the question or do better in the future. (If my tags are wrong, I'm sorry; I made my best guess and chose governance over government or society.)

Answer 1

A disaster like this is a +20% to +30% polling boost for the government.

Even a mediocre handling by the government will result in a massive PR boost, especially if the government has popularity to gain.

Here is a graph of approval ratings of various world leaders during the first 3 months of 2020:

So casting our mind back to Jan 2020 in politics, people were pissed at their governments:

• Emmanuel Macron couldn't even go the cinema without protestors storming the place.
• Scott Morrison had taken a secret holiday while Australia was on fire, and told nobody he was gone. Didn't come back until multiple volunteer firefighters had died, thousands of people were literally pushed into the sea by fire front, and hundreds had died from smoke inhalation.
• Trudeau was pushing for a massive oil pipeline through native peoples land, despite an election promise not to. Protesters are shutting down multiple ports.
• Trump was getting his first taste of impeachment.

Then a disaster occurs. Look at those poll numbers! A disaster is like +30 in the polls.

I can't find numbers for all these data series but several have stayed about 30% above their Jan 2020 levels:

• ScoMo is polling at +7% in Nov 2020 up from -25%.
• Macron is at -10% in Jan 2021 up from -40%.
• I'm not including America as the removal of Trump complicates things, and Trump wasn't motivated by the high death toll. They literally decided it was better to do nothing because it was hurting blue states more.
• The UK polling went up until about May, but has dropped back down. Probably because they're not doing great, but could be complicated by Brexit.
• Merkel is still polling at record highs

The actual disaster type doesn't seem to matter. Here's George W Bush's polling numbers. See if you can spot the Sep 11 2001 spike:

Watching TV on the other side of the planet, I remember hearing conspiracy theories about US government complicity in 9/11, or at least foreknowledge of the plan before the last tower fell. The next day I heard on a news channel "Hey that looks like a controlled demolition". Bush still got a +39% boost in polls even though the attack represented a massive FBI/CIA failure and there was discussion of problems in the narrative. He still got +14% when he invaded the wrong country 2 years later, showing you don't need to do anything correct to get a PR boost - you just have to do something and spin it right.

The "Mind control" part of your story is probably going to be unproven in the heat of the moment. It'll be an unsourced conspiracy theory like many of the post-911 ones, that kind-of fits some of the evidence but no-one knows for sure. It will turn out to be true and perhaps proven months later, but people will see zombies killing them, a government fighting back and trying to save them, and will choose the government's side - the actual details of the story like "mind control" will get lost in the rally-behind-the-flag effect.

Answer 2

1: People will call the police if they find someone dead. Usually people are good at that.

2: Dead people are taken to a facility. We have got that going on too.

3: Dead people will be scanned for bug larva or if that cant be done, will be watched to see if they get up as zombies.

4: Back outside, people will call the police if a zombie shows up. I think people can be relied on to do that.

5: Zombies will be taken to a facility by medical personnel. People will be ok with that too. Maybe they can be helped? The zombies, I mean. People will be ok once zombies are taken away.

6: Zombies collected thru various means will be secured together, mind controlled by humans and given uniforms that conceal their identity then deployed in operations where they will not interact with civilians. If I recall, XCOM involves a lot of shooting aliens that pop up from behind various crates. Zombies could do that.

People will be upset about aliens making zombies. They will be cautioned to run from aliens they see. They will be reassured that authorities will be closely watching any crates.

People will be upset about loved ones becoming zombified. They will be happy that loved ones are getting medical help instead of getting shot. They will not know zombified mind controlled loved ones are actually wearing uniforms and fighting aliens, but would probably be proud.

Maybe after aliens are better understood zombified humans can still get medical help.

Answer 3

You seem to be describing an invasion, involving the mass murder and zombification of citizens (all of which are far worse than mere 'terrorism').

Historically, political and legal objections are strong when the conflict does not seriously threaten society, but are ignored/overridden when folks do consider society to be in imminent danger.

So there may be regrets and navel-gazing later, but if the nature and the scale of the threat call for it, you will see (unconstitutional) press censorship, (unconstitutional) roundups and detentions, (unconstitutional) forced testing, and and (unconstitutional) tracking and monitoring of (innocent) citizens. And after the war is over, you will see statues of the President who did it and schools named after them. It happened most obviously in the USA during the Civil War, WWI and WWII.

When election time comes, free voters --if they understand the threat-- will be satisfied with nothing less than victory: The eradication of every Chryssalid, and the complete scanning of the surviving population to be sure none were missed. If the President can convince the electorate that there is a reasonable path to victory, re-election is likely. A major-wartime election is typically a single-issue election.