The Canadian truckers’ Freedom Convoy 2022 is the most important event going on in the world right now. It has become massive and durable with more funds and supplies still arriving every day after 2 weeks and despite efforts by GoFundMe and the governments of Ottawa and Canada to stop them. The protests have become infinitely meme-able (HONK!) and a brilliant shining light on how to combat tyranny. They have been model Canadians. Amiable, polite, and clean to a fault. They have been charitable. And most importantly they have been peaceful. The internet is full of hundreds of hours of video of people who just want their lives and their freedom back singing songs, playing hockey, supporting each other, and even policing their own. All five Canadian Nazis who made an appearance were promptly told that they were not welcome.
Jesse Kelly has correctly observed that this is absolutely terrifying to those who would take your freedom around the world. And they will not take it lying down.
Jesse predicts this ends in violence and ultimately the nationalization of the entire Canadian economy, and the creation of a full on Maoist state. While I certainly wouldn’t put it past any of the monsters who occupy the seats of power in Canuckistan or globally, I have a more optimistic outlook.
Everything is moving politically against such a development. The Canadian people support the truckers by larger numbers every day. A poll out of a Victoria newspaper (On Canada’s left and leftist coast) showed support at around 90% of respondents. European countries are ending all COVID restrictions. Even CNN has decided masks don’t actually work anymore.
But Jesse is correct: those in power cannot let the convoy win. Not on the convoy’s terms. The loss of legitimacy would threaten them too greatly. But there is too much exposure if they try to crush it. Too many cameras. So what can they do?
The same thing they do to every movement that can’t directly oppose that threatens them: co-opt it.
While legacy media hasn’t really bothered to talk about it, focusing instead on one guy with a confederate flag, two demands have been brought up related to the protest. Their primary motive has been the ending of all mandates and restrictions related to COVID. Less mentioned but still present is the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
We’ll ignore the (hilarious) issue of Trudeau’s actual parentage for right now, and focus on the man himself. Son of a previous, and much respected Canadian PM, Justin has never shown much aptitude for anything outside of fashion.
Jesse Kelly is right that he is a globalist through and through. But what kind of a globalist is he?
Respected? Connected?
I don’t know what you see, but I see a weak man. Someone who wanted to be one of the cool kids, but doesn’t really belong and doesn’t know what to do. What do those kids do to be popular?
Whatever the cool kids tell them to do.
This is why Canada has been at the forefront of this insanity. I’m sure, as Kelly suggests, he has been meeting with powerful people and they have been telling him what to do. And he’s been more than happy to bend over backwards to please them.
But here’s the thing about that weak kid who does what you tell him: no one respects him, and his “friends” see someone they can take advantage of. They also see someone who has screwed up royally enough that a local protest movement is threatening their entire hegemony.
He was a useful pawn. A patsy. Now, he’s a liability. And he’s the perfect fall guy. And they are going to leave him holding the bag.
I think this goes one of two ways. First, the peaceful route:
Media starts becoming more sympathetic to the protestors and more hostile to Trudeau. We start seeing interviews with convoy “leaders” talking about how their main goal is Trudeau’s resignation. How he isn’t right for Canada and has done such a bad job, someone needs to step in and right the ship. We won’t hear about vaccine mandates, although provinces will continue to roll them back without comment or claim they are “unrelated” or “based on new scientific evidence.” Parliament starts calling for his head. Some already are. You will see voices within his own party calling for his ouster. The country needs a leader who will listen to the voice of the people. What the people actually want will never be acknowledged. His myriad scandals will suddenly become relevant. Didn’t he wear blackface? What about sexual assault? How many ethics violations?! It will be the Rogan treatment. He will be attacked until something sticks.
Trudeau, for his cowardly part, will run to the people who have been telling him what to do all along. They’ll tell him to resign or call for a new election and step down, and he will obey. They’ll promise him, implicitly or explicitly, all the protection and luxury that affords a member of the privileged class once they leave the public eye. Then they, and everyone else, will forget about him.
Canada will have a new face. The convoy’s demands will be met and they will go home. The media will talk endlessly about how Trudeau’s removal was the only goal of the protests and anyone who thinks it has to do with vaccines or masks or passports is anti science or pro Russia. Besides, everyone did their part and beat the virus so we don’t need any of those things anymore.
The worse option is that Trudeau gets that go-ahead to end the protests by any means necessary. A tragedy occurs. And suddenly, the nationalized media he had been hiding behind turns on him. He’s a dictator. A tyrant. He must be removed. All it takes is one overzealous cop in Ottawa, or one trucker freezing to death in his rig leaving a family behind because Trudeau made the police seize the gasoline. From there it proceeds much the same. It will never have been about COVID, only the evil individual who was Trudeau. Once he is gone, everything can go back to normal and no one else’s power needs to be threatened. Trudeau, for his part, is not allowed to just disappear in this scenario.
For what it is worth, I hope I am right and Jesse Kelly is wrong. What is important however, is what happens afterward. This is all going to end, one way or another. Every power-grabbing would-be tyrant is going to want you to forget everything that has happened over the last two years. Certainly you must forget that it was a bunch of honest, peaceful, god-fearing blue collar workers who put an end to it. Everything that was done was necessary, or everyone thought it was necessary, so no one should be held accountable. And the next time there is an emergency, even more draconian measures will be justified.
But we cannot allow ourselves to forget. And there must be a reckoning.