How Does All Of This End?

How Does All Of This End?

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,

There is a sense in the air that the pandemic is winding down, and the toxic culture of division, fear, and hatred along with it.

• Cases are down dramatically.

• Deaths too.

• Hospitalizations are no longer irregular.

• Restrictions are being repealed.

You can follow all the action daily at the CDC’s new and unusually competent landing page on the virus (it only took them a year to build this). 

Despite all the talk of a new normal and infinite mandates, there is hope that it could all unwind quickly, pushed by force of public impatience and frustration with restrictions, and a political scramble to avoid responsibility by running away from all that they did for the last year. 

The list of signs and symbols could be made very long. 

• The politicians who overreached are suddenly being held accountable, with both Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom on the hotseat. Calls for governors and mayors to resign consume state and local news. There is clearly major political tumult building. 

• The Great Barrington Declaration scientists can hardly keep up with the requests for respectful interviews, now that it is becoming clear that they were right all along. 

• The experience in open states like Florida, Georgia, South Dakota, and so on, makes it impossible to ignore the grim truth that the lockdowns achieved nothing for public health but did harm health, businesses, liberties, law, and civilized life. 

• The push to open economies, by the same people who locked down the economies, such as Boris Johnson in the UK, is an implicit repudiation of the nonsensical ZeroCovid movement. Everyone seems now to agree with what AIER has been saying for a year: humanity must deal intelligently with pathogens and stop pretending that political forces can control them. 

• AIER visiting senior fellow Naomi Wolf had a hit just last evening on the Tucker Carlson show, and they spoke as allies in the reopening efforts after years of ideological sparring. 

• There is growing weariness of Anthony Fauci’s daily word salads that have massively mixed up the public health messaging for a full year, to the point that Meghan McCain has called for his firing. 

• A year ago, Slate was making sense until the virus became political and they joined the lockdown mob. Now the publication is back to making sense again, with this excellent piece. 

• British medical journal The Lancet is publishing excellent short pieces on the cost of lockdowns, including this riveting letter from Martin Kulldorff. 

• A prestigious European journal of public health has published a blistering attack on the very idea that a power government should ever be trusted with virus mitigation. 

The people who have committed their careers and lives to this pandemic and the policies surrounding it might soon need to find a new raison d’etre. Then the clean up begins – how did this happen, who did it, how to make sure it never happens again – and does not end perhaps for decades. 

It’s been fascinating to see the early drafts on the reasons why. There will be some perfunctory efforts to credit lockdowns, masks, human separation, and closures for somehow making the virus go away. The trouble is that there is no evidence of this. There is evidence for many other explanations having to do with herd immunity and “seasonality” (another way of saying the pathogen comes and then goes) and possibly more precision in testing. 

For example, this new article by the very sensible Jennifer Beam Dowd of Oxford names many factors (while downplaying the role of vaccines) but says of masks and so on that it is “challenging to identify their specific effects, and cases are dropping in almost all states even with a wide range of policies.” 

Indeed! 

The reckoning will be taking place for months if not years. In the end people will be left wondering why we took such extreme measures that wrecked so many lives when the endemic equilibrium comes in time regardless of all these measures. We tried a crazy experiment in social and economic control and we are left with scant evidence that it made much difference on the virus but vast evidence that they demoralized and ruined life for billions of people. 

What about the opening? There will continue to be those who will cower in fear, still dealing with the deep psychological trauma that comes from watching TV journalists scream panic for the better part of a year. But there will be an emerging majority that will be more than willing to go back to real life. 

My go-to book on the pandemic and the response has been Albert Camus’s remarkable novel The Plague. He wrote it as partially autobiographical about his own quarantine. It was published in 1947. It still stands as a brilliant account of the sociology and psychology of fear during pandemic and lockdown. 

As we approach the end of the novel, the plague begins to lift, not because of anything that the townspeople did or because of the restrictions on their lives. It lifts because the virus ran its pandemic course. What’s striking is how quickly the dawn of normalcy happens, followed by a new appreciation for life, fun, revelry, and exuberance. 

As people begin to see the end, Camus records the fictional scene. 

No doubt the plague was not yet ended—a fact of which they were to be reminded; still, in imagination they could already hear, weeks in advance, trains whistling on their way to an outside world that had no limit, and steamers hooting as they put out from the harbor across shining seas. Next day these fancies would have passed and qualms of doubt returned. But for the moment the whole town was on the move, quitting the dark, lugubrious confines where it had struck its roots of stone, and setting forth at last, like a shipload of survivors, toward a land of promise….

In streets and squares people were dancing. Within twenty-four hours the motor traffic had doubled and the ever more numerous cars were held up at every turn by merry-making crowds. Every church bell was in full peal throughout the afternoon, and the bells filled the blue and gold sky with their reverberations. Indeed, in all the churches thanksgiving services were being held. But at the same time the places of entertainment were packed, and the cafés, caring nothing for the morrow, were producing their last bottles of liquor. A noisy concourse surged round every bar, including loving couples who fondled each other without a thought for appearances. All were laughing or shouting. The reserves of emotion pent up during those many months when for everybody the flame of life burned low were being recklessly squandered to celebrate this, the red-letter day of their survival. Tomorrow real life would begin again, with its restrictions. But for the moment people in very different walks of life were rubbing shoulders, fraternizing. The leveling-out that death’s imminence had failed in practice to accomplish was realized at last, for a few gay hours, in the rapture of escape.

And so on goes the opening, slowly at first, then quickly, then all at once. The decisive turn is when the public returns to thinking rationally, refuses to be locked up anymore, and decides to trust themselves and the medical profession rather than the powerful elites who only pretend to manage disease. The trauma lasts, of course, but the healing also begins. 

Last April, in a more naive time, I truly did imagine that these lockdowns and restrictions could not last. I had underestimated both the public panic and the government’s willingness to double- and triple-down on unworkable policies. 

I also overestimated what I had previously imagined to be a widespread commitment to liberty and property that would have inspired some public revolt early on. So here we are a full year later, with the reports of lockdown carnage pouring in by the day and hour. It’s a gigantic mess, to be sure, but the end does seem to be in view, and thank goodness for that. Let the blowback begin.

'Papers, Please': Vaccine Passports Have Officially Arrived By Joseph Mercola

 

'Papers, Please': Vaccine Passports Have Officially Arrived

By Joseph Mercola

For a weary public longing to get back to normalcy, vaccine passports represent a tantalizing carrot, being dangled as a mechanism for freedom. By showing proof that you’ve received a COVID-19 vaccine, perhaps you can once again board an airplane and travel freely, attend a concert or enjoy a meal in your favorite restaurant, just like you used to.

Except, being required to present your “papers” in order to live your life isn’t actually freedom at all — it’s discrimination, and even a move toward technocratic fascism, one that’s setting the stage for increased surveillance and erosion of your privacy.

Nonetheless, this blatant move toward an ever-increasing surveillance state is being welcomed by many who have been led to believe the passports are necessary to protect public health and safety.

Vaccine Passports Are in Development

Best Price: $38.69 Buy New $43.95 (as of 05:10 EDT - Details) It’s likely only a matter of time before you’ll be asked to prove your vaccination status in order to carry on with your daily life. “The government seems to be developing vaccine passports by stealth, making sure the technology is in place for anyone who needs it,” wrote Lara Prendergast, The Spectator’s assistant editor.¹

She’s referring to the U.K. government, which has given sizable grants to a number of private companies developing such technology. This includes more than $86,000 to Logifect, which is slated to launch a vaccine passport app in March 2021, and more than $104,000 to iProov and Mvine, which are developing digital certificates that show vaccination status.

As Prendergast noted, “Your phone would most likely be your vaccination passport. Everyone’s vaccination status is already being logged centrally by the National Immunization Vaccination System using their NHS number. This information could be easily linked with an app.”²

Around the world, vaccine passports are rapidly being rolled out, including in Denmark, which will begin issuing them in February 2021. Sweden. Spain, Italy, Cyprus and Malta have also expressed positivity toward vaccine passports to revive tourism, while in the U.S., plans for vaccine IDs are under evaluation.³ International efforts are also underway.

The Commons Project and the World Economic Forum created the Common Trust Network, which developed the CommonPass app that’s intended to act as a health passport in the near future.

The app allows users to upload medical data such as a COVID-19 test result or proof of vaccination, which then generates a QR code that you will show to authorities as your health passport.⁴ The proposed common framework “for safe border reopening” around the world involves the following:⁵

1. Every nation must publish their health screening criteria for entry into the country using a standard format on a common framework Buy New $33.99 (as of 02:01 EST - Details)
2. Each country must register trusted facilities that conduct COVID-19 lab testing for foreign travel and administer vaccines listed in the CommonPass registry
3. Each country will accept health screening status from foreign visitors through apps and services built on the CommonPass framework
4. Patient identification is to be collected at the time of sample collection and/or vaccination using an international standard
5. The CommonPass framework will be integrated into flight and hotel reservation check-in processes

Eventually, the CommonPass framework will be integrated with already existing personal health apps such as Apple Health and CommonHealth. If you want to travel, your personal health record will be evaluated and compared to a country’s entry requirements, and if you don’t meet them, you’ll be directed to an approved testing and vaccination location.

Majority Are in Favor of ‘Privacy-Encroaching Technology’

Even as mortality data show COVID-19 is hardly the deadly pandemic it’s been made out to be, fear-mongering remains in full effect — including warnings that a more infectious, mutated strain of SARS-CoV-2 is on the loose. With fear still omnipresent, acceptance of “privacy-encroaching technology” that promises an illusion of safety is high.

In the U.K., researchers from the University of Bristol conducted two large surveys about such technologies, with overwhelming positivity reported.⁶ The first measured public acceptance of location tracking through your cellphone that would allow health agencies to monitor your contact with others to target social distancing and quarantine measures.

About 70% of the respondents said they would accept such an app that they could choose to download and, surprisingly, 65% also said they would accept such an app even if it was mandated by the government and used to locate those violating lockdown orders and issue fines and arrests.⁷

Buy New $16.99 (as of 02:01 EST - Details) A second survey evaluated acceptance of vaccine passports, with 60% stating they were in favor and only 20% stating they were strongly opposed. The study’s lead author, professor Stephan Lewandowsky, described those opposed as “surprisingly low, adding, “It’s fascinating how people seem increasingly receptive to their personal data being used to inform themselves and others about what they can and can’t do.”⁸

Prendergast put this widespread acceptance into further context for the British, who “have traditionally been deeply suspicious of the idea of an official asking for ‘papers, please’:⁹

“[This] … is why there was such a backlash against Blair’s ID cards. As one journalist at the time put it:

‘If I am ever asked to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am, when I have done nothing wrong and when I am simply ambling along and breathing God’s fresh air like any other freeborn Englishman, then I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it.’

That journalist is now our Prime Minister. It would be an extraordinary turn of events if Boris Johnson ended up being the man who introduced an immunity identity system in Britain.”

US Universities Institute Jail-Like Restrictions

At every turn, long-standing societal norms — like college students gathering with friends in their dorm or even leaving their rooms for work and exercise — are disappearing. As of February 7, 2021, for instance, the University of Massachusetts Amherst was in a “high risk” operational mode due to a “continuing surge in COVID-19 cases.”¹⁰

The status, which was to be in place for a minimum of 14 days, made all classes remote and ordered all students, whether residing on or off campus, to self-sequester in their residences, except to get meals, attend medical appointments or undergo twice-weekly COVID testing.

Buy New $38.00 (as of 02:01 EST - Details) Violating these orders would result in “disciplinary action,” according to a university press release, which could include removal from residence halls or suspension.¹¹ Students were also informed that, should they decide to leave campus to self-sequester at home, “it is highly unlikely we will be able to accommodate your return.”

Even within a residence hall, students were told to remain in their rooms at all times except when using a restroom on their floor. Outdoor exercise or attending to the immediate needs of a pet was allowed, but only when wearing a mask and maintaining social distancing.¹²

This wasn’t the case at UC Berkeley, however, which banned outdoor exercise in addition to extending dormitory lockdowns in February 2021. The only times students are allowed to leave their rooms during the lockdown are to obtain medical care, get required COVID tests, to use an assigned bathroom or to obtain food from an outdoor dining kiosk, after which “you are required to return immediately to your room.”¹³

Are You Clean Enough to Travel?

While many countries have suggested that the COVID-19 vaccine will not be mandated, by giving special privileges to the vaccinated, such as the ability to travel, attend social events or even enter a workplace, it essentially amounts to the same thing and insinuates a “cleaner” class of people in those who have been vaccinated.

It’s reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic, when hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes were flying off store shelves in a frenzy to clean away COVID. Now we know that transmission of COVID-19 by fomites — the term used for inanimate surfaces and objects that can transmit a pathogen — has been exaggerated.

Emanuel Goldman, a microbiology professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, suggested this in July 2020, when he stated that studies suggesting SARS-CoV-2 was easily spread via surfaces did not present real-life situation.¹⁴

“In my opinion, the chance of transmission through inanimate surfaces is very small,” he said, and while period disinfection of surfaces, especially in hospitals, was a reasonable precaution, in public settings, he noted, “this can go to extremes not justified by the data.”¹⁵ In February 2021, an editorial in Nature supported Goldman’s work, suggesting that costly and toxic disinfection efforts are misguided. Buy New $27.95 (as of 03:44 EST - Details)

“Catching the coronavirus from surfaces is rare. The World Health Organization and national public health agencies need to clarify their advice,” the editorial reads.¹⁶ The New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority alone is spending an estimated $380 million annually on COVID-related sanitation, and when it asked the U.S. government whether they should be focusing on fomites or solely aerosols, they were told to continue their focus on fomites.¹⁷

Writing in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson describes this as a type of “hygiene theater,” in which Americans are going through the motions of dutifully cleaning and, likely, over-disinfecting surfaces when the virus spreads most efficiently through the air.¹⁸

Indeed, much of the COVID-19 pandemic response has been embroiled in theatrics, including mask mandates, for which the scientific evidence has been described as “astonishingly weak.”¹⁹ Hygiene theater, much like the theater for vaccine passports, provides an illusion of safety, not one grounded in reality.

Discussion to Ban Florida Travel for Disobedience

In the U.S., Florida announced in December 2020 that it would have no more lockdowns and no statewide mask mandates.²⁰ The act resulted in retaliation by federal government, which entertained the idea of a domestic travel ban to the state, reportedly to curb the spread of new COVID-19 variants.

In a press conference, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stated, “Any attempt to restrict by the federal government would be an attack on our state done purely for political purposes.” Sen. Marco Rubio agreed, calling the act unconstitutional: “So now that they’re considering actual restrictions on Americans inside the country, I think it is unconstitutional. I think it’s going to be challenged in court successfully.”²¹

The “technocratic fascist vision”²² of professor Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum who wrote the book on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is moving ahead full-steam. He announced the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset Initiative in June 2020, which includes stripping all people of their privately owned assets.

Getting health passports to become a new normal has, in fact, been part of the plan all along for the Commons Project, which began developing software that tracks medical data well before the COVID-19 pandemic. “But spikes in virus cases around the world this spring accelerated its work,” The New York Times reported.²³

While the vaccine passports are starting out with the COVID-19 vaccine for international travel, it’s setting a precedent for expansion that can be extended to other vaccines and medical information, and then to domestic travel and even leaving your house, as the passports will be carried on your phone that has location-tracking abilities.

And it’s clear that when the fascists come, they’ll be wearing masks — probably two or three of them depending on their level of loyalty. For now, getting informed and sharing your knowledge is the first step to protecting your freedom.

Sources and References

• ^{1, 2, 3, 9} The Spectator February 13, 2021
• ⁴ CNN December 27, 2020
• ⁵ World Economic Forum, CommonPass
• ⁶ PLOS One January 22, 2021
• ^7, 8 University of Bristol January 22, 2021
• ^10, 11 UMass Amherst Spring 2021
• ¹² UMass Amherst February 13, 2021, High-Risk Level FAQs
• ¹³ UC Berkeley February 8, 2021
• ^14, 15 The Lancet Infectious Diseases July 3, 2020
• ^16, 17 Nature February 2, 2021
• ¹⁸ The Atlantic February 8, 2021
• ¹⁹ The Times August 10, 2020
• ²⁰ Local 10 News December 1, 2020
• ²¹ New York Post February 12, 2021
• ²² Winter Oak October 5, 2020
• ²³ The New York Times December 13, 2020

 https://twitter.com/i/status/1364538133342208001

 

 

 

International Alert Message about COVID-19. United Health Professionals

 

 

We bring to the attention of our readers, this important international statement by health professionals, medical doctors and scientists,  which has been sent to the governments of thirty countries

Below is the complete text which was sent to the governments.

The text includes quotations from prominent scholars and health professionals

Link to original document: Very Urgent : International Alert message about COVID-19

See here for list of governments to which the letter  was sent. 

Selected Highlights 

Stay home, save lives » was a pure lie.

Remove the following illegal, non-scientific and non-sanitary measures : lockdown, mandatory face masks for healthy subjects, social distancing of one or two meters.

The lockdown not only killed many people but also destroyed physical and mental health, economy, education and other aspects of life.

The natural history of the virus [the coronavirus] is not influenced by social measures [lockdown, face masks, closure of restaurants, curfew

When the state knows best and violates human rights, we are on a dangerous course.

Exclude your experts and advisers who have links or conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies :

Stop the vaccination campaigns and refuse the scam of the pseudo-health passport which is in reality a politico-commercial project

***

We are health professionals of the international collective : United Health Professionals, composed of more than 1,500 members (including professors of medicine, intensive care physicians and infectious disease specialists) from different countries of Europe, Africa, America, Asia and Oceania and, on August 26, 2020, we addressed to governments and citizens of countries around the world an alert message regarding the COVID outbreak.

First, let’s start with the conclusions of the 2010 report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the management of the H1N1 epidemic : 

« The Parliamentary Assembly is alarmed about the way in which the H1N1 influenza pandemic has been handled, ot only by the World Health Organization (WHO) but also by the competent health authorities at the level of the European Union and at national level. It is particularly troubled by some of the consequences of decisions taken and advice given leading to distortion of priorities of public health services across Europe, waste of large sums of public money and also unjustified scares and fears about health risks…grave shortcomings have been identified regarding the transparency of decision-making processes relating to the pandemic which have generated concerns about the possible influence of the pharmaceutical industry on some of the major decisions….unregulated or secret lobbying may be a danger and can undermine democratic principles and good governance ».

  Know that the same mistakes made in the H1N1 epidemic are being repeated today in the COVID epidemic. You are the victims of the biggest health scam of the 21st century regarding the real danger of the virus, the measures to be taken, the figures, the tests and the treatments, and this was done with the same techniques of manipulation used during the epidemic of H1N1 or the Iraq war. Experts, professors of medicine as well as scientific and medical collectives began to alert others of this as early as March 2020.

The countries of the world (except rare cases like : Sweden, Belarus or Tanzania), without thinking, have only imitated and blindly followed others.

This epidemic is amplified, dramatized and instrumentalised by criminals who take advantage of it to achieve economic, political and ideological goals and agendas that are harmful to humanity and we will prove this to you. You must stop this global scam quickly (because it is a serious danger to your people and your country in terms of : health, economy, education, ecology and human rights) by immediately taking the following actions :

1-Lift all restrictions 

Remove the following illegal, non-scientific and non-sanitary measures : lockdown, mandatory face masks for healthy subjects, social distancing of one or two meters. These crazy and stupid measures are heresies invented in 2020 that do not exist in medicine or public health and they are not based on any scientific evidence.

This is not how we manage an outbreak :

– « The world went mad » with coronavirus lockdowns which « fly in the face of what is known about handling virus pandemics » (Dr Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, June 24, 2020).

– « The infection fatality rate seems to be about the same as for influenza, but we have never introduced these drastic measures before, when we had influenza pandemics. And we cannot live with them for years to come » (Prof. Peter Gøtzsche, December 1, 2020).

– « The decision of lockdown as the decision of wearing masks…are not based on scientific data…» (Prof. Didier Raoult, June 24, 2020).

– « The natural history of the virus [the coronavirus] is not influenced by social measures [lockdown, face masks, closure of restaurants, curfew, etc.]…The lockdown did not trigger the decrease in cases…As for the closure of restaurants which had very strict health protocols in place…of course, I have no way of defending it…it has not influenced the epidemic at all…The lockdown has not changed anything…» (Prof. Philippe Parola, December 3, 2020).

– « There is no scientific evidence to support the disastrous two-metre rule. Poor quality research is being used to justify a policy with enormous consequences for us all » (Professors Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson, June 19, 2020).

– « Grotesque, absurd and very dangerous measures…a horrible impact on the world economy…self- destruction and collective suicide… » (Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi, March 2020. He also sent, at the time, a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel).

  In addition, these tyrannical measures violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its articles: 3, 5, 9, 12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 26, 27, 28, 30 and the UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child in its articles : 28, 29, 32, 37.

– « When the state knows best and violates human rights, we are on a dangerous course. The pandemic has led to the violation of basic human rights…There has not been the slightest ethical analysis of whether this was justified. It is not» (Prof. Peter Gøtzsche, December 4, 2020).

Forcing non-sick people to wear masks is not only a heresy but it is also harmful to health as well as to ecology and is a form of mistreatment :

– « Dictatorship of masks totally unfounded » (Prof. Christian Perronne, September 22, 2020).

– « The curfew…was used during the German occupation when the militia and the Gestapo went to the houses. And now we’ll have the police making visits to see if there are more than six people at the table ! What is this madness ?! » (Prof. Christian Perronne, October 15, 2020).

– « Every winter in Paris, the ICU beds are totally saturated. We transfer patients…every winter, in normal circumstances » (Prof. Bruno Mégarbane, anesthesiologist and intensive care physician, September 27, 2020)

 « In neither of the 2 waves… all the ICU were not saturated, it is false ! » (Prof. Michaël Peyromaure, January 18, 2021)

2-Open up economy, schools, universities, air transport and hospital units.

3-Exclude your experts and advisers who have links or conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies

The 2010 report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the management of the H1N1 epidemic also said :

« The Assembly calls on public health authorities at international, European and national level -and notably WHO-…to ensure that all persons subject to conflicts of interest are excluded from sensitive decision-making processes ».

Countries’ experts who pushed for these totally heretical measures are either followers, ignorant or corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry.

4-Require an international and independent investigation and that those responsible for this scam be tried

On October 1st, 2020, German lawyer Reiner Fuellmich announced that an international network of lawyers will argue the biggest tort case ever : Buy New 

« The anti-corona measures have caused and continue to cause such devastating damage to the world’s population’s health and economy that the crimes committed by (…) the WHO must be legally qualified as actual crimes against humanity as defined in section 7 of the international criminal code ».

He said also that this must be called « a corona scandal and those responsible for it must be criminally prosecuted and sued for civil damages ». The investigation must focus, among others, on Bruce Aylward (WHO) and Neil Ferguson (ICL).

-On January 10, 2021 : A letter relayed by The Sun and written by lawyers, a member of Parliament, human rights activists and a former US Air Force general was addressed to the FBI and MI-5 along with security services in Canada, Germany and Australia, where the authors say :

« We are writing this letter to request that a federal investigation be commenced and/or expedited regarding the scientific debate on major policy decisions during the COVID-19 crisis. In the course of our work, we have identified issues of a potentially criminal nature and believe this investigation necessary to ensure the interests of the public have been properly represented by those promoting certain pandemic policies ».

The letter call which was « deliberately promulgated…to impoverish the nations who implemented it »

Rare countries like Sweden, Tanzania or Belarus -which can be congratulated- have refused the lockdown and have not blindly followed others and if we apply the reasoning of the lockdown defenders, the outcome must be a massacre or the saturation of their hospital system. Is this the case in these three countries ?

The answer is of course : no. Moreover, on September 15, 2020, The BMJ published an article entitled :

« COVID-19 : How does Belarus have one of the lowest death rates in Europe ? ».

These three countries are living proof of the lockdown scam and since this reality might wake up public opinion and people see that they have been lied to, a corrupt press has been spreading, from the beginning, articles and even fake news, against Sweden and Belarus.

The famous international slogan:

« Stay home, save lives » was a pure lie. On the contrary, the lockdown not only killed many people but also destroyed physical and mental health, economy, education and other aspects of life. For example, the lockdown in the USA has killed thousands of Alzheimer’s patients who have also died far from their families. In the United Kingdom : the lockdown killed 21,000 people.

The effects of the lockdown « have been absolutely deleterious. They did not save the lives they had announced they could be able to save…It is a weapon of mass destruction and we see its health…social…economic effects…which form the real second wave » (Prof. Jean-François Toussaint, September 24, 2020). Imprisoning its people is a crime against humanity that even the Nazis did not commit !

– « This country is making a dramatic mistake…What are we going to suggest ? That everyone stay locked up all his life because there are viruses outside ?! You’re all crazy, you’ve become all nuts !…we are setting the planet on fire » (Prof. Didier Raoult, October 27, 2020).

– « It is a big delirium but which is instrumentalised by big pharma and also politicians…It is a fear organized for political and economic reasons » (Prof. Christian Perronne, August 31, 2020).

– « It is just a global scam to make huge profits, bail out the banks and meanwhile ruin the middle classes in the name of an epidemic…made destructive by liberticidal, allegedly health measures » (Dr Nicole Delépine, December 18, 2020).

– « We have medical evidences that this is a scam » (Dr Heiko Schöning, July 2020).

– « Think about these two questions :…Is the coronavirus man-made ?…Have they tried to use this viral disease or this psychosis for their own ends & interests ?» (Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus). –

« There is utterly unfounded public hysteria driven by the media and politicians. It’s outrageous. This is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public….it should be known as nothing more than a bad flu season. this is not Ebola. It’s not SARS » (Dr Roger Hodkinson, November 13, 2020).

5-No longer blindly follow the recommendations of the WHO and require that it be totally reformed

An investigation carried out in 2016 (WHO in the clutches of lobbyists) showed an edifying radiography of the WHO ; a weakened structure subject to multiple conflicts of interest. This investigation has shown how private interests dominate public health in the WHO. Another investigation (Trust WHO) also revealed these serious anomalies.

6-Use the recognized measures for the management of epidemics 

Such as recommendations of hand washing, sneeze or cough into the elbow, use a mask but only for patients and healthcare professionals (in specific situations), isolation of the sick, etc. The severity of an epidemic is assessed by the case fatality rate (CFR), among other things. However, the latter is very low (0.03-0.05%) and there is therefore no justification for taking measures that are not only disproportionate but also unscientific.

7-Make the media aware of their responsabilities 

The media must, for example, stop talking about the coronavirus.

8-Remove the requirement for tests

The people who push for mandatory testing are defrauding governments and pursuing only economic goals. Nothing in this coronavirus (which is a benign virus and with a low CFR) justifies it. The flu infects one billion people each year, far more than SARS-CoV-2, spreads faster and has more populations at risk than this coronavirus and yet no test is required for travel. This is why Professor Didier Raoult called « a delirium » the claim that it is a serious illness and said, on August 19, 2020, that « it is not worse than the flu ».

– « The infection fatality rate for this new coronavirus is likely to be in the same ballpark as seasonal influenza » (Prof. John Ioannidis, April 17, 2020).

– « Reassure the large majority of the population that their risk of dying or getting severe disease from COVID-19 is very low » (Prof. John Ioannidis, April 22, 2020).

– « Do you realize ? Today, we are destroying the economy whereas finally the figures are comparable with those we experienced with the flu ! » (Prof. Christian Perronne, October 25, 2020).

9-Stop the vaccination campaigns and refuse the scam of the pseudo-health passport which is in reality a politico-commercial project 

– « We don’t need it [the vaccine] at all…All this is about purely commercial goals » (Prof. Christian Perronne, June 16, 2020).

– « It is an old marketing principle of pharmaceutical companies : if they want to sell their product well, consumers must be afraid and see it as their salvation. So, we create a psychosis so that consumers crack up and rush on the vaccine in question » (Prof. Peter Schönhöfer).

– « As a doctor, I do not hesitate to anticipate the decisions of the government ; we must not only refuse these vaccines [against COVID-19], but we must also denounce and condemn the purely mercantile approach and the abject cynicism which guided their production » (Dr Pierre Cave, August 7, 2020).

– The COVID vaccine is « so, so unnecessary » (Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi, December 2, 2020).

– « I have never seen in the history of medicine that we urgently develop vaccines to vaccinate millions, billions of individuals for a virus that no longer kills except people at risk that we can identify, that we can treat…I have never seen a vaccine coming out after 2 months !…it takes years ! » (Prof. Christian Perronne, December 2, 2020).

– « We’re going too fast. If there was an emergency,…if today COVID-19 kills 50% of people, I will say let’s take risks…but here we have a virus that kills 0,05% and we will take all the risks ! I know there are billions behind this…Be carefull, this is very dangerous ! » (Prof. Christian Perronne, December 2, 2020).

To the question : « We do not need a general vaccine for the whole humanity with 0.05% deaths ? », Professor Christian Perronne replied : « It’s obvious ! ».

-In November 30, 2020 : Professor Christian Perronne wrote a letter in which he alerted on the danger of the vaccines based on genetic engineering :

« The people who promote these gene therapies, falsely called “vaccines”, are sorcerer’s apprentices and take…the citizens of the world for guinea pigs ».

-On October 19, 2020, in a correspondence to the journal The Lancet, scientists expressed concerns and warned :

« we are concerned that use of an Ad5 vector for immunisation against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) could similarly increase the risk of HIV-1 acquisition among men who receive the vaccine ».

-If people accept the COVID-19 vaccine, it will be :

« a mistake because we risk having absolutely unpredictable effects : for example, cancers…We are playing the total sorcerer’s apprentice…Man must not serve as a guinea pig, children must not serve as guinea pigs, it is absolutely unethical. There must not be deaths from vaccines » (Prof. Luc Montagnier, Virologist and Nobel Prize in Medicine, December 17, 2020.

-In Switzerland, a group of 700 doctors and health professionals called on January 15, 2021 for stopping the vaccination campaign

– « I think it’s [the COVID vaccine] downright dangerous. And I warn you, if you go along these lines, you are going to go to your doom » (Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi, December 2, 2020).

-On December 30, 2020 : Réaction 19 (a French association founded by lawyers with nearly 60,000 members) informed, in a press release, that it has filed a complaint concerning the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna “vaccines” for : deliberately endangering the life of others, aggravated deception, abuse of weakness and aggravated extortion.

-Recently, several Members of the European Parliament have alerted the population because they are forbidden to consult the contracts signed with pharmaceutical laboratories. This opacity is a proof that there are compromising things they want to hide. Michèle Rivasi, a Member of the European Parliament, even lodged a complaint5. As a reminder6: in 2009, Pfizer was fined $ 2.3 billion, the largest fine ever imposed by the courts of the United States on a pharmaceutical group. It was found guilty of fraudulent commercial practices.

In 2010, AstraZeneca was fined 520 million euros for recommending unauthorized use of a drug. In 2011, Merck payed a fine of $ 628.36 million to resolve allegations of off-label marketing and false statements about the cardiovascular safety of a drug.

In 2013, a fine of 1.62 billion euros was imposed on Johnson & Johnson to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from allegations relating to the prescription of three drugs including promotion for uses not approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and payment of kickbacks to physicians and to the nation’s largest long-term care pharmacy provider.

You must stop this global scam where the politico-economic (even ideological) agendas of criminals are to COVID what the Iraq war was to the attacks of September 11th, 2001 (here’s a reminder of the scam of the Iraq war :

These criminals manipulate the countries of the world and want to make the epidemic last as long as possible to achieve their goals when the COVID epidemic should have been declared over at a certain period of the past year ; indeed, in medicine, the epidemic threshold from which the beginning and the end of an epidemic are declared is between 150 and 200 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The Tanzanian president is one of the few presidents who understood this because he declared on June 8, 2020 that the COVID epidemic was over in his country.

« The epidemic is over ! » (Professor Yoram Lass, July 2, 2020)7.

In this epidemic, the danger is not the coronavirus but the people who instrumentalise it and who are the real virus to fight.

The virus is completely innocent of what is happening (impoverishment, job losses, suicides, deaths, economic recession, unemployment, etc.) and the real culprits are those who have pushed the world to use these measures and the governments that continue to implement these measures despite alerts and warnings.

« The World Bank has just estimated that the corona pandemic has caused an increase of about 100 million people living in extreme poverty. This is not because of COVID-19. It is because of the draconian measures we have introduced » (Prof. Peter Gøtzsche, December 1, 2020).

The discrepancy and disproportion between the level of dangerousness of the virus and the magnitude of the measures taken (which are moreover totally heretical) are so obvious that it inevitably leads to the conclusion that there are other objectives behind. You have to be really blind or naive not to see it.

With these measures which have nothing to do with medicine or science, governments are not fighting the dangers of the virus but are fighting the basic rights of their people and destroying their health, economy, education, ecology, culture and other aspects of life.

« We have been living a kind of delirium from the start…We live in a world which is crazy :…the conditions that have been taken to fight this disease are conditions from another century…it is not even the level of the Middle Ages ! » (Prof. Didier Raoult, December 7, 2020).

On December 28, 2020, Randy Hillier, a Canadian MP, wrote this message on Twitter along with the hashtags : #We Are Living A Lie and #No More Lockdowns : « The lies and deceptions of Covid are over. How & why so many allowed themselves to be deceived will take years to uncover ».

It is not because the majority of countries are doing the same thing that it means that it is good or that it is the right thing to do. The number is not a criterion for knowing whether or not countries are right to apply these measures. On the contrary, many historical examples show that the majority is often wrong ; Iraq war (rare countries like France did not follow and were right), H1N1 (rare countries like Poland did not follow and were right), World War II, etc.

The charge of conspiracy theories is the response of those who have no arguments and a technique of mass manipulation because all what has been reported in this letter does not consist of theories but of truths and statements made by eminent experts including Nobel laureates for medicine.

This letter will be kept as proof that your government has been alerted. Everything must return immediately to normal and this global hostage-taking must stop because you have known that you have been the victims of the biggest health scam of the 21th century.

Please, don’t make the mistake of underestimating our letter or ignoring it. Here are 2 examples of what happens when a government makes this mistake :

Despite warnings from several experts about the danger of Dengvaxia (dengue vaccine), the Philippine government decided in 2016 to launch a vaccination campaign that ended later in a public scandal. According to the office of the prosecutor Persida Acosta, 500 children died as a result of this vaccine and several thousand are sick.

According to the prosecutor, the responsibilities are shared between the laboratory which sold “a dangerous vaccine” and the government which set up a “massive and indiscriminate” vaccination campaign, in deplorable conditions. This vaccine, however, promised to be a planetary triumph ; in 2015, Sanofi confirmed with great fanfare the marketing of a revolutionary dengue vaccine. It was a world first, the product of twenty years of research and 1,5 billion euros of investment.

Yet from the beginning, voices raised in the scientific community : Doctor Antonio Dans tried to warn about the inconclusive results of the first clinical trials. In the USA, Professor Scott Halstead, a world renowned specialist in the disease, even sent a video broadcasted in the Senate of the country to urge to suspend the vaccination program. The former health minister of the country has been charged in this scandal. « It’s the lure of profit that killed these children », said prosecutor Persida Acosta.

The second example is the scandal of the H1N1 vaccine which was bought by several countries despite alerts from Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, the chairman of the Health Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, who in a motion for a recommendation entitled « Faked Pandemics – a threat for health » said : « In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide.

They have made them squander tight health care resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines ». He was totally right because, later, in Europe alone the vaccine made 1,500 victims of narcolepsy including 80% of children, so much so that on November 24, 2013, the Swedish Minister of Social Affairs, Göran Hägglund, said he was ready to publicly apologize to the victims of the swine flu vaccine.

We cannot tell you everything in this letter, that is why you must consult the following documents very carefully because everything you have been told is detailed and argued there, and because you will discover other things that you do not know and by which you will be even shocked :

For footnotes and references click here

See here for list of countries

Sources :

1 : https://www.lci.fr/replay/video-le-brunch-de-l-info-du-dimanche-27-septembre-2020-2165685.html                                                                                                                    

2 : https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7yr0oz                                                                                                                                                                                                       

3 : https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13718024/china-trick-world-into-lockdown-open-letterr/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb                                                                                                

4 : https://www.illustre.ch/magazine/manquons-recul-face-aux-potentiels-effets-indesirables-vaccins                                                                                                                  

5 : https://twitter.com/j_bardella/status/1351932253576818690                                                                                       https://twitter.com/dupontaignan/status/1350095404474327047                                                                               https://twitter.com/DocteurGonzo4/status/1351778258753355777                                                                                                                                                                         

6 : https://www.france24.com/fr/20090903-le-laboratoire-pfizer-ecope-dune-amende-23%C2%A0milliards-dollars-                                                    

https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2009/09/02/une-amende-de-2-3-milliards-de-dollars-pour-pfizer_1235011_3234.html                                                                        

https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2010/04/28/astrazeneca-ecope-d-une-amende-de-520-millions-d-euros-aux-etats-unis_1343983_3234.html                                                                                                                     

https://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/actualite-economique/merck-debourse-pres-d-un-milliard-de-dollars-pour-solder-le-scandale-vioxx_1054000.html                                                                                                                       https://www.lequotidiendumedecin.fr/actus-medicales/medicament/amende-record-de-162-milliard-deuros-pour-le-laboratoire-americain-johnson-johnson                                                                                                                  

7 : https://www.facebook.com/261835320624052/videos/1240827799610762/

This originally appeared on United Health Professionals.

 An interesting perspective on the Trump presidency...

Once Upon A Presidency - From Populist To Dissident

Authored by Joshua Hochschild via AmericanMind.org,

Let’s say you’ve long been disaffected with political parties. You don’t trust them. You care about politics, but you don’t see much promise in the standard candidates.

Let’s even say you have suspicions the two parties are more interested in their own power than in helping the country.

Occasionally you see promising people come forward, challenging the conventions. Maybe your interest is piqued by an Andrew Yang or Tulsi Gabbard, a Marianne Robinson or Bernie Sanders. Or perhaps by a Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Ron Paul, or Herman Cain.

Whoever they are, interesting people with interesting ideas show up, and somehow they speak to you. They seem to share some of your interests. But they never get a foothold in the game of national politics.

Maybe you don’t understand politics, and these candidates always lose fairly on the merits. But you suspect the deck is stacked against them. They criticize Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, corruption in politics. You’ve heard them called “populists,” but they always end up getting labeled something like “fascist” or “socialist,” and cast aside.

Or maybe you do understand politics. You long for an outsider, populist candidate, not because you are naïve, but because you are well-read. You’ve studied history and political theory. You don’t care much for pundits or journalists; you read thoughtful, literate writers who provide historical and philosophical perspective—thinkers most pundits and journalists have never heard of and wouldn’t understand.

Or maybe you are a sincerely religious person and you know your beliefs are not, will never be, embodied in a political party. You know all politics is compromise. But you also feel an obligation to help improve the world through politics, and this only makes you all the more frustrated at the narrow range of options presented by the two parties.

For whatever reason—naïve disaffection, intellectual aloofness, religious detachment—you don’t feel at home in mainstream partisan politics, and you suspect that the system, the two parties themselves, are stacked against you.

There are economic and political explanations of why they might be stacked against you. Whether you are aware of these explanations or not, the evidence is clear: candidates who challenge them, candidates who are too “populist,” are always marginalized, ridiculed, suppressed.

Then along comes Trump.

The Renegade

Is his candidacy a joke? Is he worth paying attention to? Is this a publicity stunt?

He says things that seem to make sense to you, and moreover he says them effectively. He inspires followers. He beats opponents. He doesn’t put up with establishment bullshit. You don’t like him—almost everybody says this—but he shows an attractive charisma, a fighting spirit. Even his imperfections—“incivility,” strange mannerisms, shamelessness, a less than respectable past—seem to be part of his energy, his dynamism.

And his actual policies? The things he says he wants to do? Well, maybe you don’t agree with every single one, but there is actually a coherence to them, a sense of priority and pragmatism. Energy independence. Non-interventionism. Revitalizing manufacturing. In substance, as well as style, he seems, well, populist.

Sure he’s rich (maybe) and a celebrity (certainly), and so not what you expect as a populist. But unlike a lot of rich people, he’s not owned. He doesn’t seem to defer to anybody or anything. He doesn’t owe anything to anyone, least of all to the party whose nomination he seeks or the powerful interests that seem to pull the strings in Washington.

So you find yourself one of tens of millions willing to give him a chance. What’s the worst that can happen?

You notice he’s usually attacked not for his policies, but for his style. They say he is “dark.” They say he is “scary.” They say he’s a racist and misogynist. They even say he doesn’t have a sense of humor, or that he’s psychologically ill. You don’t see any of this—but you do see who is saying these things: his enemies in the two parties who would be threatened by his success. You don’t think the charges are fair—but even if they are, it’s what he’d do in office, not his style or his tweets, that matters.

Maybe you see a rally on TV, or maybe you attend one yourself. It doesn’t seem “dark.” The tone is cheerful, patriotic. He’s funny, and also substantive. And the crowd—it’s diverse and friendly. Normal people. Truckers and plumbers and builders. Lawyers and dentists and accountants. Teachers and engineers, restaurant owners and waitresses, moms and grandmothers, people who haven’t been inspired by politics before, all sorts.

The Unthinkable

And then: Trump wins.

Everybody is surprised. Some people even seem genuinely scared. You wonder if the media emphasis on how “scary” he is might be harming people’s mental health.

The opponents obviously overplay their hands. They are hearing “dog whistles” that aren’t there (and they would only signal “dogs” if they were there, anyway). Maybe some of your friends call you a racist for supporting Trump, but you know you aren’t a racist, and you don’t think he is either.

The racism charge is so common and people are so scared that a few smart liberals who opposed Trump beg for people not to lose perspective, to give him a chance, and to stop “crying wolf” about his racism.

You wonder, “Why aren’t people more interested in understanding why Trump won?” They assume that since Trump is “dark,” his widespread support must be “dark.” Trump is a racist, they say, so his supporters must be racist. Or his supporters are brainwashed, the victims of manipulation. Or maybe there was foreign interference. Maybe the election was rigged.

If you haven’t given up on the biggest media outlets by now, perhaps you find some traditional journalists that avoid this cheap, simplistic narrative—journalists doing serious work to explain the political landscape. Perhaps you find one of the honest, anti-Trump journalists, like Tim Carney or John Miller or Chris Arnade, covering Trump’s actual populist appeal, seeking to understand the kinds of people who voted for him, the real civic and economic conditions that Trump appealed to.

But these hardworking, gumshoe journalists seem the exception, not the rule. And their stories, the ones that have a ring of truth to you, are subtle, complicated, and under-the-radar. They don’t play well on social media. They don’t make good memes. It’s outrage that sells. People who are afraid don’t want to be told not to be afraid. They want to be told they have good reasons for their fear.

So cooler heads do not prevail. Trump is never given a chance. Though he evidently wants to work with Democrats—on major issues, like immigration, health care, and tax reform—the Democrats refuse to work with him.

Then, at one point, there is supposedly proof that Trump is a racist. In the wake of tragedy in Charlottesville, he said that white nationalists, white supremacists, Neo-Nazis were “fine people.” Shocking. Smoking gun.

But it’s not. You see it’s a lie, a lie started and propagated by journalists. Clever editing, willful misreadings, bad faith, outright dishonesty. You read the transcript, you watch the video, and it’s obvious: Trump said there were “fine people” on both sides of the debate about statues, but he clearly, unequivocally, and multiple times condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis. The “smoking gun”…isn’t.

The Lies

Half the country never heard about this though. They fell for a hoax. They believed they really had “evidence” that Trump was an unashamed racist. Crazy, huh? Why? Why would this hoax be perpetuated? Political gain? Outrage clicks? Have the journalists convinced themselves? Who knows the motive: in any case, it proved a useful myth for politicians, an easy talking point. Joe Biden believed the “fine people” lie (or claimed to). Eventually, he identifies it as the basis of his campaign against Trump.

Meanwhile, Trump’s very legitimacy as president has been challenged from the beginning. His opponents accused him of stealing the election. Foreign interference. “Russian collusion.”

These charges are leveled for years. No evidence. Just allegation. Conspiracy mongering. No proof. For years, they say the election was rigged, illegitimate. But no evidence.

Eventually the evidence that does come out is that the whole thing was made up. It’s not just a false allegation, but a contrived hoax, a political con-job. People high up in the FBI lied about it, fabricated evidence, entrapped people on false charges, testified falsely in Congress, hid evidence, and coordinated with the press to leak false information. It was an egregious abuse of surveillance powers. Maybe you see a popular documentary about it, or maybe you were able to put enough pieces together after seeing it argued about and dissected all over social media.

You’ve long known that the media manipulates and lies, and you’ve seen it exacerbated on social media. The media has become masterful at manipulating narrative, framing things, hiding things. Maybe you also watched a documentary about that too (one of the top documentaries of the year, even after being suppressed by Amazon).

You know your disaffection with “the establishment” isn’t partisan: Democrats and Republicans seem corrupt, liberals and conservatives are fed up with “the system.” The media seems systematically dishonest. These are basic civic and human rights you care about: the right to the rule of law, the right to a free press, the right to free and fair elections, the right not to be manipulated.

Big journalism itself seems to be part of the problem, coordinating with the established interests in the two parties to push their narrative. Did they help dispel the “Fine People” hoax? No, they magnified it. Did they properly cover the collusion allegation? No. Did any evidence ever emerge that Trump stole the election? No. But it made for clickable headlines for four years. 

“Trump stole the election”: it was literally a conspiracy theory, but it had traction because, of course, we all know about corruption and fraud in politics. We expect it. Heck, Kennedy’s theft of the election from Nixon was a plot-point in Mad Men.

Perhaps you’ve also done a little digging and you know that there are questions about voting machines and how trustworthy they are. This was even a major Democratic complaint following the 2004 election. You’ve always wondered how those machines worked, how they could be secure. Potential for fraud has been widely recognized. Maybe you saw one of numerous stories, or even caught the HBO documentary, about how these machines are not only vulnerable, but suspiciously, intentionally vulnerable.

You’ve also noticed that social media plays a role in manipulating people—not only bad actors on social media, but the social media companies themselves: they tweak their algorithms to manipulate your behavior. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature—it’s the business model.

Twitter and Facebook and Google knew they had power to influence elections. People from these companies promised to use it more “responsibly” in 2020. Anti-Trump and pro-Trump politicians and pundits pressured big tech to wield their power more “responsibly.” How much could they influence? How many votes could they swing? Who knows, but these are questions worthy of study and political consideration. They are certainly not “partisan.”

The Race

So by now you don’t trust establishment politicians or establishment media. You don’t trust Big Tech. All of these institutions have shown a willingness to manipulate information.

In September 2020, journalists lie about Trump’s executive order banning racial discrimination and scapegoating, saying (not only without evidence, but contrary to evidence) that it “bans diversity training” or “bans sensitivity training.” In October, right before the election, establishment media outlets cover up revelations about corruption in the Biden family. You are used to this now: the official press will hide truths if they’re embarrassing to Biden and make up lies to embarrass Trump.

As the election nears, Trump seems more popular than ever before. After four years, people aren’t just taking a risk on an unknown quantity, they are voting for someone who presided over a robust economy, created jobs, reduced minority unemployment, kept us out of wars, brought troops home, reduced energy prices, reframed diplomacy in the Middle East, and so on. His opponent (who typifies the establishment choice) is uncharismatic and frail.

Most polls say Trump doesn’t have a chance, but the polls were wrong last time, and most of them are connected to media sources you already don’t trust. The best poll (Rasmussen, the one that will turn out to be closest to the actual results, as in 2016) has it very tight.

But another thing you don’t trust by the time of the election is the electoral process itself. You are aware of an unprecedented opportunity to rig or steal an election, unprecedented vulnerabilities in an already complicated system, magnified by controversial rule changes allegedly intended to accommodate a national health scare.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the election, mainly by making it easy for Democratic ballots to get cast and counted. Changing rules about mail-in ballots, voting early, and collecting ballots are justified as promoting access to voting, but are all known for increasing the chances for fraud.

An early case about the constitutionality of rule changes even makes it to the Supreme Court, in response to which several justices acknowledge that there are serious constitutional questions which need to be resolved somehow. But you don’t need justices to tell you that you can’t change the rules in the middle of a game.

So leading up to the election, you are aware of issues with questionable rule changes, all of which magnify the problems endemic to ballot harvesting, signature matching, unclean voter rolls, vulnerabilities in voting machines, and disputes about when and how ballots have to be returned.

Still, you think Trump can win—that he could outperform the “margin of fraud.” That’s clearly his goal: not only to win by enough, but to win big.

The Steal

After the election, as news trickles in, you hear reports about:

• Suspicious timing of ballots arriving.

• Reports of suspicious ballots.

• Suspicious treatment of election monitors.

• “Software glitches” and “user errors” in voting machines.

• Apparent anomalies in timing and distribution of vote tallies.

• Anomalies in Trump’s performance relative to downballot Republicans.

• Anomalies in swing counties.

There are so many allegations that keeping up with them would be too much even if it were a full-time job. Will journalists try? Their common response to anyone raising questions about election integrity is to insist that “experts” say there is “no evidence” of election fraud. It is hard to even find serious non-partisan coverage of the allegations. “Fact checks” appear glib, vaguely citing “experts” and “courts” and “no evidence.” But you know that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

And even trying to find out information on your own, you notice Big Tech aggressively flagging any news that suggests irregularities. During the extended counting of ballots, for instance, any post on Twitter suggesting skepticism about election integrity triggers this warning:

Voter fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in the US, election experts confirm. With ballot counting continuing and the presidential race being called for Joe Biden, experts and officials say there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 US election. The election process is secure and voter fraud of any type is incredibly rare according to The Associated Press and Reuters. Officials and experts warn that the most interference in US elections, whether from foreign or domestic players, comes in the form of misinformation campaigns, many of which are intended to create distrust in the US’s electoral process.

You find the rhetoric conspicuously odd. Technically correct, but also evasive. “The election process is secure” (sounds confident!) “according to…” two newswires? The constant repetition of “experts” and “no evidence” is the opposite of reassuring; in fact, it makes you more suspicious. (It reminds you of when you knew early on in the pandemic that masks were a reasonable step to slow spread of disease. “Experts” at the World Health organization said there was “no evidence” supporting mask-wearing, only to change their messaging weeks later.)

You aren’t the only one to notice that social media flags and warnings don’t seem so much about debunking the stories or helping you analyze them as about hiding them, not so much about leading to more information but stigmatizing skepticism.

Maybe you keep trying to read deeply about this. Maybe you give up and rely on your intuition. Maybe you catch bits and pieces and assume that somewhere, lawyers and legislators and investigators are doing the work to actually figure out what is going on. But what you can’t miss is that supposedly authoritative media outlets (which you don’t trust) keep complaining about “conspiracy theories” and disinformation on social media. You know not to trust everything you read, but you also know you can be a judicious reader. It’s not all crazy trolls writing about the problems. There are liberal and conservative voices, independent journalists, thoughtful commentators, specialist experts in polling or election law or statistical analysis or Constitutional jurisprudence.

You suppose you could ask a political scientist to explain why it all adds up to reasonable suspicion of an irregular election, but it’s intuitive, isn’t it? It’s intuitive—and yet hard to summarize. Do we even have a single word to capture it? Is it fraud? Is it ballot harvesting? Is it rigging? Is it stealing? Is it hacking? Is it vote-switching? Is it gaming the system? General lawlessness? Illegitimacy? Is there even a single word that can cover the multi-layered suspicion that has now accumulated about how the powers-that-be might seek to undermine a straightforward, legal, democratic process?

Later, much later, when “the secret history” can be reported, you will learn that it can in fact be called an “unprecedented conspiracy” and “shadow campaign,” that they were not “rigging” the election, they were “fortifying” it.

The Rally

Stories about all these individual elements weren’t secret; they were so numerous they were aggressively “fact checked” by respectable media outlets, the same media outlets that propagated false storylines like the “fine people” hoax or hid the news about Hunter Biden’s corruption. Maybe here and there individual fact checks were right. Maybe they all were. But who knows? The problem by now is that, even with “fact checks,” each allegation of irregularities still seems plausible, and the fact-checkers, well—at this point you just don’t think they have much credibility.

We can at least agree to trust the courts, but did the courts really adjudicate these questions? Did they even look at the evidence? Rarely. You know that, for good reason (usually), courts are loath to get involved in deciding elections. So most courts that received cases found procedural grounds not to hear them.

If the courts wouldn’t review and consider the evidence, then the state legislatures themselves, those who certified electors, had to hear them. Sometimes they did. But sometimes they claimed they didn’t have to because “the courts” hadn’t been willing to.

Meanwhile, Trump is doing his best to keep pressing these obvious, important questions—but in doing so, he is accused of trying to “steal” the election, though he was trying to use the very legal political processes intended to ensure election integrity that opponents had done four years earlier. At one point, for instance, it is reported as fact that Trump was trying to manufacture votes, as if he were caught openly soliciting fraud; of course independent thinkers could see through the spin, go back to the transcripts, and find he was only asking the Georgia secretary of state to acknowledge that a substantial number of votes are questionable.

Then you hear that Trump’s last effort to address these questions, after the courts and state legislatures have failed him, is to endorse a rally in Washington. He and his supporters will seek to petition Congress to review evidence about whether the certified electors should be accepted. Trump is still playing the game that people say he’s not been playing: pointing out problems, asking questions, allowing democratic, Constitutional processes to take place. Taking advantage of basic rights to petition political bodies for justice.

Scores of thousands of people attend, from all over the country. They are cheerful and patriotic, generous and civic-minded, orderly and polite. Responsible, proud citizens. They love their country and respect its lawful processes. They know that, even if the rally does not actually help Trump politically, it promises to draw attention to problems with our electoral system, and to testify to the importance of peaceful democratic protests. Maybe there will be a resolved will to reform the system, and to ensure that people can trust elections next time. The country can’t keeping having its winners suspected of “stealing” elections.

Maybe you were there. Maybe you heard the speeches, were caught up in the peaceful, patriotic mood of the day, and then walked with most of the crowd from the rally at the Ellipse to the gathering at the Capitol, to petition Congress to take the possibility of fraud seriously.

The Climax

If you are close enough to the front of the very large crowd at the Capitol, you might see people scuffling with police, but you also see many more people asking them to be peaceful. You notice there aren’t that many police, and you assume it’s because Trump crowds are known to be peaceful. You might have seen people trying to get past police lines, but you also saw police letting people get closer to the Capitol building, letting people gather on the steps, letting them into the building.

It was a protest, and some people apparently took it too far. On the way home, you hear about violence and arrests. Vandalism and thievery in the Capitol building. You hear about a woman, apparently unarmed, shot and killed. It is a sobering, gut-wrenching end to the day. Out of a massive crowd, it seems that a fraction was stupid, shameful, lawless. Hardly representative of the kinds of people who were there, or the purpose for which they gathered. A small fraction of a large civil rights event turned into a lawless mob. You are disheartened that a respectable event should be so stained.

But you wake up the next morning to something far worse. Slanderous headlines. By your very presence in DC, you are accused of being a traitor, part of a dangerous movement. Every outlet is calling it an “insurrection.” The lawlessness was “incited” by Trump. There was a violent attempted “coup.” Obviously they have pushed too far. They will have dial this back. Won’t they? The words are wildly disproportionate: nobody had a strategy or opportunity for seizing power. Oh, and it was a racist insurrection, a manifestation of white nationalism. Despite the sea of American flags, news stories seem to always run a picture of a Confederate flag.

You are used to ignoring the lying, outrage-seeking, politically manipulative media. But this time, they are spinning lies directly about you. They are exploiting the awful travesty of some people’s inexcusable violence to delegitimize and shame every responsible citizen who took reasonable and lawful means to raise legitimate questions about election integrity.

Perhaps you hope you can offer some perspective, tell your side of things. But it’s too late. The media spin is overwhelmingly effective. Nobody will listen, they have made up their minds. They sincerely believe the lies, the disinformation, the emotional manipulation. They sincerely believe you are a dangerous traitor simply for going to DC and voicing reasonable skepticism.

No, they won’t even acknowledge it is reasonable skepticism. They insist you are a foolish traitor. Your beliefs are unfounded, your questions misplaced. Your skepticism about the election is not only unpatriotic but irrational. It doesn’t even deserve to heard. It isn’t based on rightly-credentialed “evidence.” It doesn’t have properly authorized “sources.”

The End?

In a healthy democracy, populist skepticism could lead to bipartisan reform efforts to restore confidence in election procedures. But the powers that be do not even acknowledge the legitimacy of any skepticism. Even after Trump is out of office, they stage a show trial, a second impeachment. The idea is to shame Trump, but also to shame anyone who supported his efforts to highlight weaknesses in our system. Taken for granted in the article of impeachment is that challenging the legitimacy of the election is itself disloyal, an effort to overthrow the American government.

The allegation that Trump “incited” an “insurrection” implies that anyone in the crowd that day was, if not actually criminal, at least dangerously stupid. Whose idea of unifying is this? Whose idea of political courage? In democratic political contests, winners need the losers to trust the fairness of the system. So why would winners demonize losers as disloyal and dangerous?

This isn’t how you envisioned any political drama, much less your own role in one. In the story you imagined, skepticism and populism are not partisan issues, and protest and argument are messy but welcome. These are a regime’s natural mechanisms for improvement. But what happens when they are not accepted and addressed, when instead they are slandered and suppressed? That is not the story you imagined. And you aren’t sure where that kind of story can end.