America’s Poison is Spreading to Canada and Beyond
Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” Might Be Its Jan 6th, or How America’s Politics of Hate and Violence are Spreading
By now, you’ve probably heard of the…uh… “
Freedom Convoy” in Canada. Ostensibly, it’s a group of truckers, who’ve organized a protest for the sake of “freedom.” From what the rest of Canada considers sanity — wearing masks and taking vaccines and exercising basic pandemic precautions.
But of course it’s not really that, an average protest, at all. So what is it?
Let’s start with what it’s not. It’s not some kind of mass movement. It’s, as PM Trudeau has said, a fringe — a
lunatic fringe. Only this lunatic fringe has been empowered. It’s not some kind of “side” with legitimate political grievances — it’s extremism. Quite obviously, we should all ask people who
travel for a living to be vaccinated, because of course they can spread the virus
most. This is just basic science and common sense, regardless of whether or not someone “agrees” with it or not — that’s the vulgar act of
politicising science and basic reason.
So what is it? To put it simply, it’s the spreading of America’s poison. That poison is now reaching Canadian shores. And heading beyond them. Similar “convoys” are
being organized in Europe, too.
What do I mean by “the spreading of America’s poison”? America’s a nation that’s been radicalized. Millions upon millions of Americans believe
obviously and patently false Big Lies. The election was stolen — hence, Trump’s back in action. They’re coming for your kids! That’s how Glenn Youngkin
got elected as Governor in Virginia — and his office seems to be okay with
bullying kids in public.
America is a nation that has collapsed in large part due to radicalisation. That radicalisation itself has deeper roots — the implosion of the working and middle class, who have formed one giant underclass, in perpetual debt to ultra billionaires, who have more money than anyone can spend in a hundred lifetimes, but keep getting richer. Societies with levels of inequality like that? They almost invariably collapse into fascism — because people need scapegoats to blame for their woes, and demagogues happily provide them.
I’ll come back to that — the genesis of fascism and social collapse. First, let’s go back to the “Freedom Convoy.” The vast majority — as in 90% — of Canada’s truckers are indeed vaccinated. They don’t want any part of this bizarre and insane “protest.”
By now, Canadian authorities are calling it an occupation. They’re right to. The convoy has blocked one of the major highways into and out of Canada. It’s made downtown Ottawa a hellscape of honking and violence and drinking and casual threats — for days upon days. That’s not a simple protest. It’s not: “hey, I have a disagreement, and I want you to listen to me.” So what is it?
It’s intimidation. It’s something verging on terror. It’s very important for Canadians to understand that. Because that is where this road leads. Canadians might not understand the gravity of all this. In America, this approach — intimidating your way to power in public life, instead of seeking consensual, democratic resolution of differences, has ripped society apart.
How much? Am I exaggerating? Just last month, an everyday soccer mom went to a school board meeting, and threatened to shoot up her kids’ school — where her neighbours’ kids go. Over what? Over masks. This is where the road of radicalisation leads. Can you imagine everyday soccer moms threatening to shoot up the schools where their neighbours kids go? Because they don’t want their kid to wear a mask?
But such scenes are becoming commonplace in America. Local officials of all kinds receive
death threats regularly from…everyday people….soccer moms and stay at home dads…who’ve been radicalised into becoming fanatical extremists…who are totally OK with using violence to achieve their vision of a desired society…instead of
consensual democratic politics.
Violence and intimidation have become staples of American civic life, or what’s left of it. How so? Well, Trump spent years encouraging and licensing violence.
Fine people on both sides, remember? Soon after, Jan 6th was legitimised as just “protest” or some such nonsense. Today, tens of millions of Americans on the right believe that
violence is perfectly justified when you can’t get the rest of society to consensually agree to your fanatical position or also believe in the Big Lies.
That is what America’s poison is. Radicalization. Violence in place of consensual democratic politics. Licensed and encouraged from the top. All that has made everyday people — literally, average people who you’d never suspect — into fanatics and extremists reminiscent of ISIS or the Taliban. People who threaten to
shoot up schools and kill their neighbours.
None of that is the slightest exaggeration, by the way. Remember the soccer mom who threatened to shoot up the school? How was she radicalized? Well,
Glenn Youngkin spent a year or more telling Virginia’s average everyday parents that their kids were under
attack. From medicine, from theories, from sanity, from history.
Nobody was attacking Virginia’s kids. Asking kids to wear masks is not attacking them.
Teaching books about slavery is not attacking them. But when you tell somebody that you’re coming for their kids — then they fly into a mindless rage, and end up in grim places like threatening to shoot up their neighbourhood school.
All this is what to expect in your society if America’s poison keeps spreading. In America, things have gotten so bad that the replacement of consensual democratic politics by violence and intimidation barely even makes headlines anymore — it’s just everyday life now.
Now let’s think about the Freedom Convoy. What is it, now that we understand America’s poison a little better? It’s intimidation. Violence. Terror. Yes, really. Nobody has a right to occupy a major city and block arteries in and out of a country. That’s the kind of thing armies at war do, for heaven’s sake. Yes, protests, too have their place in a democracy. But an ongoing occupation and blockades are
not a protest. They are intimidation tactics, the replacement of consensual democratic politics by violence and force and coercion.
And no, the “Freedom Convoy” isn’t exactly Greenpeace trying to shut down a mine. They are blocking public spaces,
regardless of the consequences. What happens if someone needs medical care? To get to school? To visit a sick relative? And so forth.
The point of the Freedom Convoy is the same as Jan 6th. It is to try and stop democratic politics from working. It is not to participate in democratic politics.
Even a protest participates in democratic politics — it’s an attempt to be heard. This is not an attempt to be heard. It’s an attempt to stop the capitol of a country from working, and therefore, to stop democracy from operating. It is to destabilise democracy as much as possible, to cause as much harm as it can to the idea and processes of consensual decision-making and self-governance.
In that sense, this is Canada’s Jan 6th.
That might sound like an overstatement, so let me put in perspective. Americans are not Canadians. I love Canada and I spent beautiful years there. I can never thank Canada enough for making me feel
truly free for the first time in my life, as a battered 16 year old. Never. Americans? I know them to be violent and thoughtless, too much so, even the good ones. Canadians, though, are far gentler and kinder people. More thoughtful ones.
And so you shouldn’t expect Canada’s Jan 6th to be a full on maniacal assault like Jan 6th was, replete with nooses and chants calling for murder and death squads. Too
American for gentle Canada. But make no mistake, this is a kind of Jan 6th as well. Let’s think about the similarities. Groups of extremists converge on the capitol. The point is to shut down democracy, through as much intimidation, chaos, and havoc as they can possibly create.
See the parallels yet?
But they hardly end there. Jan 6th was carefully organized and funded. In ways we still don’t know enough about. Some kind of spontaneous protest was the
last thing it was. The same is true here. Who is contributing funds to the tune of millions to the Freedom Convoy?
Nobody knows. Who organized all these Facebook pages on which it was coordinated? Again, no one knows.
Yet again, that’s a crucial similarity to Jan 6th.
Swarm politics — a kind of digital terrorism, designed to cause as much damage to democracy as possible — strikes. Facebook pages mysteriously pop up. Money magically appears. The Big Lies are repeated over and over again. A call to action is made. The swarm now swings into action.
This is how American politics works now. It’s the swarm against the hive — and the swarm is winning. The Big Lies work. The Facebook pages radicalise millions with them. Money coming from nowhere is offered in support through anonymous donations on apps and websites. Bang! The swarm strikes — and takes down a governor here, a mayor there, turns an entire city into chaos there. That is how Youngkin won in Virginia — swarm politics. And now it seems he bullies and threatens kids from the governor’s office in retaliation for criticism. After licensing soccer moms to threaten to shoot up schools. Think about it. Think about where all this ends. It doesn’t end well. It ends in the collapse of a society into nothing but a swarm of violence, stupidity, rage, and hate.
That is where America is now, and we all know it’s not going to be a democracy for very much longer. I’m not saying Canada will end the same way. Canada is a different country — very different. It is a social democracy. For those reasons, it is less prone to radicalisation in the first place — strong social contracts and systems mean its working and middle class haven’t collapsed into total ruin and despair the way America’s have. That is why the “Freedom Convoy” is a tiny fringe — whereas in America, the swarm politics of hate and violence, aimed at destroying and destabilising democracy, are now the
norm.
Canada is in much better shape. Think of it as vaccinated against America’s poison. But — just as with Covid — everyone needs a booster, because the virus keeps evolving and mutating. America’s poison — the swarm politics of hate and violence, designed to destroy democracy, not participate
in it — are a super mutated version of fascism and authoritarianism. They are brutally and wildly effective. So Canada, vaccinated as it is, must be careful — not to let this disease spread.
So is this Canada’s Jan 6th? You will have to tell me. I hope it is. In the sense that this is as bad as it gets. That there isn’t anything even more like a Jan 6th in Canada — that it learns its lesson from the “Freedom Convoy,” and comes together as a society to rid itself of this poison. That means throwing the book at these fanatics, it means strong cultural norms against intimidation tactics, it means regulation of the platforms which enable swarm politics, and it means a strong pushback from all corners of civil society against demagoguery and Big Lies. America’s not capable of any of that, and it never really was, having been founded on Big Lies and demagoguery, the ones of slavery and hate. Canada’s different, though. It is eminently capable of all that, and then some. Let us hope it takes this chance to act against America’s poison — before it keeps spreading.
Because do you know what the true lesson of Jan 6th was — if you’re Canadian, if you’re not America? America blew it. Jan 6th was a turning point precisely because…
nothing happened. Nobody much was punished, and no, wrist-slaps don’t count. Society didn’t come together to reject hate and violence. Politicians didn’t censure it, across party lines. Intellectuals didn’t condemn it nearly strongly enough — and even then, wouldn’t accept the idea that it was an attempted coup.
No, the “Freedom Convoy” isn’t an attempted coup. Not yet. What it is is practice. It’s a trial balloon of sorts, a dry run, to see just how much the fanatics can get away with. How much they can destabilise democracy and damage it, bring it to a grinding halt, how close they can come to intimidating and bullying society into just giving up on it. Even if it’s for a week, two weeks, a month — even if the results are just confusion and chaos and panic — that’s success, for them. It’s one step closer to the real thing, an attempted coup. It’s the
normalisation of violence and hate and Big Lies, American style. It’s the triumphant roar of stupidity, brutality, and raw power over the gentle and hard work of democracy.
For them? This much is a great, great success. And those successes inspire tomorrow’s transgressions. They pave the road of escalation with more extremism, Bigger Lies, more severe attempts at testing the limits of democracy, worse ones.
That is a road that Canada — and the world — should not go down. You can see where it leads. Nobody sane should want to be America.
You get that. Here’s the part you might not.
This is your chance not to be. Don’t blow it. Finish it before it has a chance to start
growing, escalating, surging, exploding. America’s poison? Don’t let your society drink even one drop.
