The Canadian Endgame

Last night Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, announced that he was doubling down and digging his heels in:

Before he tweeted this out, there was speculation on social media that the reason he called this meeting was because he planned to resign.

But this was little more than wishful thinking.

He will never resign. Not unless he feels his life is threatened (ie. his government has lost control, and the military/police are no longer under his command), or his bosses (wealthy international elites) instruct him to resign.

The reason he will not resign is because he does not believe in democracy. He is an autocrat, and governs as such. He does not believe in the right of the people to protest their government, he does not believe the will of the people determines government policy, and he does not believe he works for the people.

He, like most western leaders today, does not believe in democracy. Thus, protesting against him–even in mass numbers–is unlikely to cause him to change his policies or respect the will of the people.

The idea that the people can protest in mass numbers and compel a political leader to either change course or resign is fundamental to democracy. It is how the people express their will.

You may argue that voting is the only way people can express their will. That’s fair.

But what if the politicians are not doing what they promised to do? Or what if the politicians are pursuing a course of action that they did not campaign on?

The only way people can remedy this misalignment is through protest.

If a politician campaigns on the promise to not to raise taxes and then wins the election, it should be clear that the people are against raising taxes. But if that politician then raises taxes once in office, how is that politician able to argue that he is governing in accordance with the will of the people? That is not how democracy works.

How, then, can it be claimed that voting is the only way to express the will of the people? If politicians do not fulfill the promises they made during the election, what is the remedy for that? Clearly voting did not accomplish anything. Clearly voting did not result in the people getting what they wanted.

And why should the next election be seen as a remedy? You could vote out and replace a politician that failed to honor his promises, but you have no guarantee his replacement won’t do the same.

This is why protest is fundamental to democracy. There must be some way other than voting–and short of violence–for the people to express their will, make their demands known and force the government’s hand. Mass protests are how the people make it clear that they are unhappy with the politicians and that things must change.

Western political leaders like Trudeau currently govern in spite of the people, not at the will or the people.

In a true democracy, elected leaders hold power until they lose the faith and confidence of the people. It is an at-will employment model.

The word “democracy” is of Greek origin and is a combination of two words: “dēmos” meaning people, and “kratos” meaning rule. Put together, it means rule by the people.

In a true democracy, politicians are the employees and the people are the employers.

When you have a job and a boss, you serve at the discretion of your boss—if you are no longer performing up to your boss’ expectations, your employment is terminated.

This is how democracy works, too—in theory. The politicians are put in power to do the bidding of the people. When the people feel the politicians are no longer doing a satisfactory job, or that the politicians are not governing in accordance with the will of the people, the politicians must either change course or resign.

If Trudeau actually believed in democracy, he would have resigned weeks ago.

A politician who recognizes that he only has power because the people want him to have power would have resigned weeks ago.

A politician who actually cares about doing the bidding of the people, and having the trust and support of the people, would already have resigned were he in Trudeau’s shoes right now.

You cannot look out across the country and see protests against you far and wide and still believe you have the confidence and support of the people.

A leader who faces widespread protests, and realizes that the people are against him, must understand that he has two choices: either change course and do as the people say, or refuse to do so and resign.

It is a very honorable thing for a politician to resign in protest. It means he believes strongly in his policies, but that he also respects the will of the people. He resigns because he cannot in good conscience do what is being asked of him. If he is truly right in his beliefs, then eventually he will be vindicated.

A politician being forced to resign due to mass protest is not a breakdown of democracy. It is not mob rule. In fact it is democracy in action. It shows that politicians are accountable to the people.

But the important thing here is that in a true democracy, a politician at odds with the people has only two options: change course or resign. There is no third option.

There is no “ignore the will of the people” option.

If there is, then you don’t have a democracy. A country where the politicians are not accountable to the people is not a democracy.

The fact that Trudeau has neither changed course nor resigned in the face of these mass protests over his policies is proof that Canada is not a democracy.

Any politician who has to flee the capital in fear of his own people, as Trudeau did, cannot possibly claim to have the confidence and support of the people.

And yet, Trudeau has not resigned. It appears as if, in defiance of the people, he will not resign.

This then begs the question, what type of government system does Canada have?

And if, as we have all believed for our whole lives, Canada’s government is categorized as a democracy—like our own—what does that say about the state of “democracy” around the world?

In other words, if Canada’s government gets to behave this way and still be called a democracy, then does the word democracy even mean anything anymore?

What is really happening in Canada right now is the facade of democracy is crumbling before our eyes.

We are now seeing that the politicians who claim to believe in democracy—and even start wars under the auspices of “promoting democracy”—are liars, and that western democracy itself is a lie.

If Canada were truly a democracy, then Trudeau, recognizing that he is completely at odds with the will of the people, would have either reversed his Covid policies, or resigned due to irreconcilable differences with the people.

In a real democracy, when the will of the government is at odds with the will of the people, the people are supposed to win out.

This is the fundamental idea of democracy: the people are in charge, and politicians are only in office to do the bidding of the people.

It is not a matter of who’s right and who’s wrong. It does not matter if Trudeau’s Covid policies are objectively correct and that removing them would not be in the country’s best interest.

If the people want them removed, then they must be removed. Simple as that. This is how things work in a democracy.

It doesn’t matter if Trudeau is “right” and the people are “wrong.” If what’s he’s doing is at odds with what the people want, then he’s got to either reverse course or resign.

He may be 100% convinced that the actions he’s taking are proper and justified, and that they ultimately benefit the people.

But that doesn’t matter if the people disagree. It is incumbent upon the politician to communicate to the people that his preferred course of action is the one that benefits the people the most.

If he cannot do that, he’s finished.

It’s his fault he couldn’t sell his policies to the people. It’s not the people’s fault for rejecting his policies.

You ever notice how governments and the media these days routinely attack and slander people who disagree with their policies? A lot of regular people even think this way now; they’ve been conditioned to believe that it is incumbent upon the people to obey the government rather than the other way around.

“If you don’t get the vaccine, it’s a moral failing on your part!” This is completely at odds with how democracy works. If people don’t trust the government, that is the government’s fault, not the people’s fault.

The people are not obligated to trust the government. The government is obligated to earn the people’s trust. That’s how a real democracy works.

Again, it does not matter if the politician is right, objectively, and the people are wrong. That is completely beside the point.

What matters is if his actions align with the desires of the people; if he’s doing what the people want him to do.

As an example: say a political leader wants to build a bridge across a ravine. He says it will provide numerous benefits—it will boost trade and the economy, and it will make travel easier.

But if the people don’t want the bridge, the bridge must not be built. The people take to the streets in protest against the bridge. It is clear from opinion polls that a majority of the people don’t want the bridge.

The politician must abandon plans for the bridge. It doesn’t matter how certain he is that building the bridge is the right thing to do and that the people will ultimately come to appreciate the bridge once it’s built. If the people don’t want the bridge, then the bridge must not be built.

It is not a matter of whether the pros of building the bridge objectively outweigh the cons. That is not the issue here. The issue is that the people don’t want it.

Now some would say, “But that’s stupid. The people are stupid. They don’t know what’s best for themselves. If the people are objectively wrong then the people should be overruled.”

You can certainly take that position—but if you do it means you cannot claim that you believe in democracy. It means you believe in autocracy.

You believe that the people should not be in charge; that they should be subjects. You believe the people should be accountable to the government instead of the other way around.

Again, it’s fine if you believe that. But if you believe there are situations in which the people should be overruled by the government, you cannot credibly say you believe in and support democracy.

Democracy is an all-or-nothing proposition, too. You can’t say that the government should pursue the will of the people most of the time, but ignore it in certain special cases. That’s not how it works.

Because where do you draw the line? And who determines where the line is drawn? How do you determine which issues the people are not to be given a say on? You can’t ask the people to determine it, because obviously they’ll object.

Democracy is all-or-nothing. Either the people rule on all matters, or they rule on no matters. Once the politicians make the decision to overrule the will of the people one time, it’s over. Democracy is no more. If the will of the people is not respected 100% of the time, you do not live in a democracy.

If the will of the people is respected in some cases and ignored in others, you do not live in a democracy. At this point any instances of agreement between the politicians and the people on what ought to be done is incidental. From this point on, the interests of the people are only pursued when they overlap with the interests of the ruling class.

If the politicians are given discretion to overrule the will of the people even 1% of the time, eventually they will come to overrule the will of the people 100% of the time. It’s inevitable.

If the will of the people can be ignored on one thing, then the will of the people can be ignored for all things.

Because, again, who determines which issues the will of the people may be ignored on? Certainly not the people themselves.

If the politicians can overrule the people on, say, the matter of building a bridge, then they can overrule the people on anything else they want, too—including on the very question of whether the people can be overruled in the first place.

In other words, the will of the people becomes irrelevant on the very question of whether the will of the people can be overruled.

Because you’ve already given the politicians the power to overrule the people. Once you give them the power to overrule the people on one issue, they will logically expand that power to include all issues.

Trudeau has decided not only that he will disregard the demands of the protesters, but that he will crush them with force.

That’s really all he can do, though. Once you as a leader decide you will not honor the demands of the protesters, and the protesters do not disband and go home, they essentially must be met with force.

Otherwise things could get out of control.

The surest sign that the Black Lives Matter riots and protests of 2020 represented no actual threat to the ruling class was that the ruling class did nothing to quell them. In fact they largely encouraged it all.

Protests that represent a threat to the status quo are met with force. They are crushed. The fact that BLM in 2020 was not met with force and was actually encouraged and enabled by the ruling class leads us to the conclusion that BLM represents the opposite of a threat to the status quo.

But the truckers are about to be met with force. The police are now being ordered to break up the protests and Trudeau has seized emergency powers.

This is how protests that actually threaten the regime are dealt with: the government declares martial law and brings the hammer down.

Two thirds of Canadians are ready to scrap the Covid restrictions.

Doesn’t matter. Trudeau will not be swayed.

At this point, with countries around the world–and even provinces within Canada–dropping restrictions by the day, it’s tough to tell whether Trudeau is being stubborn to avoid looking like he’s giving in to the protesters, or if he genuinely wants to keep restrictions in place.

But his reasoning ultimately doesn’t matter: his actions matter. And his actions make it clear that in Canada, the people are not in charge, and that democracy does not exist.

Trudeau is an autocrat. He thinks not in terms of democracy and the will of the people, but in terms of power. He views the protesters not as the will of the people expressed, but as a threat to his power.

What comes next is anyone’s guess. The good news is that the government of Canada was not established as an autocracy, it has merely been taken over by a would-be autocrat. There are still vestiges of democracy left within the governing system of Canada–in plain terms, there are other politicians in the country that have the ability to overrule Trudeau.

The premiers of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan have all come out in opposition of Trudeau’s plan to impose martial law to deal with the protesters:

The question now becomes whether Trudeau faces a full-blown mutiny from within the ranks of the government.

Will they demand his resignation?

Trudeau no longer has the full confidence and support of the people or of the government. If he is to remain in power, then from here on out he must govern as a dictator, crushing any resistance and destroying all who oppose him.

He is clearly determined to do so. Whether he will be permitted to do so is the real question here.

If he does not sufficiently crush all opposition to his rule, to the point where it discourages the people from ever rising up against him again, then his actions will only have the effect of temporarily delaying his own downfall.

In other words, if you attempt to destroy a political movement, you had better succeed, because otherwise you will only further inflame and enrage the opposition.

Trudeau had better be prepared to jail these protesters as insurrectionists and traitors, not merely break up the protests, or else the protests will continue in some other form.

Trudeau will continue bleeding support until he is forced to resign by others within the government.

Because while democracy is an all-or-nothing proposition, so is being an autocrat: you cannot be a partial autocrat. You have to fully commit to it–meaning rule with an iron fist and completely crush all dissent.

If you try to rule as half an autocrat, you will eventually be toppled. You must impose grave costs on people who oppose you–death, imprisonment, destruction of livelihood, etc.–otherwise you

Virtually all autocrats are hated by the people. The reason they are able to remain in power is because any and everyone who could oppose them is either imprisoned, dead or terrified to the point of silence and acquiescence.

But an autocrat who is not feared is simply hated, and he will last long.

I don’t believe Trudeau has the stones to rule as a true autocrat, which means I think he will ultimately be forced to either resign or capitulate to the people’s demands.

Trudeau wants to ignore the will of the people, but I don’t think he’s prepared to kill and imprison protesters in mass numbers–especially protesters who are by all accounts entirely peaceful.

Canada is stuck in a period of limbo right now where it is no longer a democracy, but it is also not a full-blown autocracy. This period of limbo cannot last indefinitely, and it will end with either democracy being restored, or with full-blown dictatorship.

The only thing Trudeau has accomplished over the past several weeks of these protests is that he has become more despised and unpopular than ever.

He thought he could simply ignore the protests and allow his backers in the media to either ignore, or, failing that, demonize the protesters and marginalize them as some sort of small fringe group.

That was a failure. Trudeau greatly underestimated the size and support of the protests, and now he is trying to disperse and break up the protests by invoking emergency powers.

But if he does not succeed in crushing the spirit of the protesters–making them realize resistance is futile and will result in either imprisonment or death–then the result will be that he has only made things worse for himself. The protesters will only be more determined than ever to oppose him.

This is why I think Trudeau is finished. He is only prolonging his inevitable downfall. He doesn’t have the stones to rule as a true dictator like his father, Fidel Castro, and so he will continue trying to be half a dictator, which is completely unsustainable long-term.

This ends with his resignation.