Let's do a little role-play. You're the head of government from a right-leaning political party, who, upon taking office, talked first and foremost about the need to let people keep more of their money. But times are tough, and instead of cutting costs, you now find yourself having to increase them. First, because defense spending needs a dramatic boost, and second, because inflation and rising living costs demand increases in social benefits and public sector wages.

It's not a comfortable position to be in. To top it off, you're under fire from the left because the cost of living crisis has significantly eroded people's sense of security; from the right, because government spending continues to balloon; and from the business sector, because tax hikes are hitting them too, with no new competitive edge or glimmer of economic growth in sight.

Despite the tough times, your political niche is teeming with competitors. Every four years, another new party emerges in the right-liberal space, with the central narrative that you're not a "real" right-winger — and that they would do the same things, only better.

Still, governing is supposedly easier with political allies who share your views and help maintain a clear ideological line. And so, you find yourself in a coalition with a party that originally sought the spotlight as an alternative to yours. You've got your back against the wall, with the combined support for the governing parties hovering around 15 percent.

And then, suddenly, there's light at the end of the tunnel: while the economy is still struggling, most people are just barely hanging on, where your own past tax hikes open up the opportunity to offer cuts elsewhere — just as voters were promised. What's more, in the short term, there's enough money to fund other popular spending items like salary raises for teachers and rescue workers. There might even be just enough left over to scrap the car tax — particularly unpopular with your party's supporters.

But instead of sighs of relief and cheers of joy, you're met with grumbling discontent — from the same familiar directions, which is to say, from nearly everywhere.

It's no longer 2005, when all the other parties were sending public letters to media corporations accusing them of unjustified favoritism toward your party. It's now 2025, and the media landscape has split down the middle. A conservative outlet has your main political rival hosting its flagship opinion program, and even the liberal press is brimming with anti-government sentiment. You have to wonder whether even Moses could lead his people to the promised land between those two crashing waves.

The erratic messaging certainly doesn't help. One day, your coalition partner is against scrapping the car tax, and by evening, they're in favor. Meanwhile, others are trying to score points by claiming credit for "fixing public finances" — a claim that is, at best, premature.

As someone who's been in politics a long time, you know elections aren't lost solely because of bad press. If your voter notices that their bank account is seeing triple-digit growth in the year before the election, that impact will outweigh any satirical pieces that metaphorically portray you striking oil in your living room.

But whether you'll still be prime minister by then — or whether someone else will reap the rewards — is another question. As is how the next government will find permanent funding for the decision to eliminate the so-called tax hump, since today's promising tax revenues are likely to be one-offs.

What if, instead of trying to deliver good news, the government's communication had stuck with the tone you started with: keep expectations low — because they're easier to exceed?

That approach certainly had its supporters. But on the other side stood those who, with local elections looming, were desperately chasing feel-good headlines.

Chances are, the audience that actually expects good news is thin. There's a whole body of public opinion research — Kahneman and Tversky's negativity bias, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence, George Gerbner's cultivation theory and Vallone and others' hostile media effect theory — that shows how, when the general tone of the news is negative, it's hard to get the public to believe in positive developments, even if they're grounded in fact. Delivering good news during bad times is a higher art form indeed.

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