The Loneliest Man in the World
As Covid tyranny collapses, Canada's Prime Minister looks an utter fool - but where are creatures like him coming from?
Remember when Justin Trudeau was cool?
Much was made of the Canadian Prime Minister’s handshake with Donald Trump when the two met some years ago. Infamous for his jerky handshake, which intimidated his political rivals and asserted his power over them, Donald Trump was considered civilization’s great danger. Impulsive, uneducated, and unapologetically right-wing, his rise to power left many of us baffled. How was it possible, in the modern, democratic world, that this clumsy elephant could make it to the most influential leadership role in the world?
When Trump met Justin Trudeau, up-and-coming, WEF-endorsed, good-looking leader of the civilized world, the Canadian had the better of him. Cool and composed, with a clearly rehearsed movement, Justin Trudeau not so much shook Trump’s hand but stabilized himself to avoid humiliation. In the matter of only a few seconds, he restored at least parity with the American lunatic. It was a moment widely hailed as a triumph of good over evil. Here was the future of 2020s politics, as politically acceptable as they come, all pronouns and progress.
(More on the handshake and meeting here - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/feb/14/donald-trumps-strange-handshake-style-and-how-justin-trudeau-beat-it-video-explainer)
Could we have guessed at the time that this man was to turn out at least as dangerous as his American counterpart?
Look at Justin Trudeau’s eyes today and you don’t need psychological training to know this man has lost the plot.
Here is part of the transcript of his speech announcing that he was activating emergency powers over the trucker’s protest (which he conveniently, and consciously, called “illegal blockades” over and over):
“The Emergencies Act will (…) allow the government to make sure essential services are rendered, for example, in order to tow vehicles blocking roads.
In addition, financial institutions will be authorized or directed to render essential services to help address the situation, including by regulating and prohibiting the use of property to fund or support illegal blockades.”
Banks would now have the power to hold back someone’s personal funds even at the mere suspicion of their being involved in the “blockades”. It should have been the biggest story of the week in the media. An unseen power grab and arguably, in terms of undermining democracy, the biggest story since World War II.
The man has gone crazy. Unloved, isolated, faced with the charming opposition of Candice Bergen, leader of the Conservatives, he has become the new Trump. A danger to society. One can imagine Candice would destroy him in a handshake battle.
How could it come this far?
How, in 2022, can a man who wants to prevent his people from taking the train because they don’t want to have a vaccine, be taken seriously? Who calls a significant part of his population “fringe”, and who claims to act in the name of science when his science is all wrong, which he must know?
It is vital to see this situation against the backdrop of a rapidly developing shift towards rationality when it comes to Covid-related health policy.
The Danish government has now published a web page to fight Covid misinformation:
https://en.ssi.dk/covid-19/typical-misinformation-regarding-danish-covid-numbers
This is not new of course but where previously such campaigns would have been designed to smear the “realists” and promote the fear narrative, this time, the communication includes gems like this one:
The Washington Post has recently come up with a series of revelations such as the fact that Covid is an entirely predictable, seasonal phenomenon (and therefore, is only marginally influenced by human behaviour)'.
There is also a growing consensus (long promoted by “lockdown sceptics” like myself, Nick Hudson, Ivor Cummins et al) that cloth masks are completely useless.
https://unherd.com/2022/02/were-masks-a-waste-of-time/
All over Europe, at least, mandates are being dropped at breakneck speed. Sweden, the poster child of proportional pandemic management, are open, as are Norway and Finland. Denmark has removed all restrictions, and the UK, free from the baggage of EU politics, have been almost mask-free for a long time, with no considerable effect on the numbers compared to Scotland, for example, who kept many more restrictions in place.
Even the most eager countries like Austria, who signed off mandatory vaccination last year, no doubt believing most countries would follow, are now looking to find ways out of the dilemma they have created.
The Omicron variant, not so different from the original in terms of age targeting but slightly less lethal (though much helped by a huge level of overall immunity), has provided the perfect way out for those lunatics who once pushed “zero Covid” strategies and destroyed our lives and economies, only to find out they could not influence the course of the virus through non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Ironically, the superb situation we, surprisingly, already find ourselves in, is proving difficult to deal with for those most eager to suppress the virus at all costs in the first place.
We can only guess why that is, and what ulterior motives were behind the decisions that have governed us in the last two years, enforced by morally good students like Mr Trudeau:
Why did they implement mask mandates in summer 2020, when science knew they were useless?
Why did they push vaccine mandates and passes, when it was clear they would not impact transmission?
Why did they tell us we had “defeated the virus” after the first wave, when they should have known it was seasonal, and left on its own?
The two options, obviously, are stupidity or cruelty. Either way, the answers are scary.
Still, there is one question that is even scarier than those answers: How could we let it happen?
Why are so many of us happy to hide their faces behind a mask? What was wrong with their world before, so they are happy to choose anonymity, and lack of human contact over normal life? Why the passion for working from home, apart from practical reasons? How can not going out into the world be the preferred option for many?
How could creeps like Mr Trudeau, with their insistence on pronouns, gender neutrality and political correctness, become successful?
How easy was it to make us so afraid of this virus we forewent our primal instincts and let our grandparents die on their own, and refused to let our children into our houses?
When, in my extended family, we gather for dinners and parties, as we frequently do, I am always amazed by listening to the conversations of the twenty-somethings. When we offer them drinks, they often reply, “no thanks - still recovering from yesterday” [when they had one drink], or “no thanks, I am driving home tonight”. Their wildest tales involve visits to the burger place to eat Meat (“we mainly like to eat Vegan”). “Smoking” is a swear word to them.
A quick look at the newspapers tells the same story. In Belgium, January was “Tournée Minérale” month, where the media encouraged you to stay away from alcohol for a month. There were plenty of celebrity endorsements (“Giving up alcohol has made my life so much better”). February is “anti-bullying month”, where Instagram stars share their stories of how they were outsiders in high school, and what you should do when you see others being bullied.
We have become so good we no longer have fun. As Clare Craig put it in one of her brilliant tweets, mask wearing was promoted because we were “too concerned with being righteous, we forgot to be right”.
Did we drop science because we preferred to be anonymous do-gooders and disappear as individuals?
Donald Trump was scary, but Justin Trudeau is scarier. As the world recovers from the Covid crisis, we must move on and become less righteous, and more right. Somewhere in the past years, many of us became afraid of life, and don’t want it to re-start.