Connecting the Dots

 

The execution of Robespierre

There have been three apparently unrelated bits of surprising news recently. Although they seem to point in opposite directions, I think together they mean the same thing.

First, the reputed impending arrest of Donald Trump.

Second, the exposure of Chinese influence on Canadian elections by the Globe and Mail and Global News; a story that seems to be growing rather than swept under the CBC rug.

Third, an initiative by some members of the South Carolina legislature to impose the death penalty for abortion.

Together, I think they suggest that we are at or near or possibly just beyond an inflection point. Wokeism is dying.

The arrest of Trump shows desperation. By all accounts, it is not legally defensible, and the charges will not hold up in court. The most likely result will be to increase sympathy for Trump. It establishes his bona fides as an enemy of the establishment. It might be deliberately provocative—Trump supporters who come out to protest might be branded as another “insurrection.” But that attack looks risky, as the original “January 6th” alarm seems to have been discredited.

One may suppose it is just one rogue prosecutor out to make a name for himself. But this is a Democratic prosecutor in New York; in that milieu, he is not going to be thinking in a vacuum. Groupthink is the usual situation on the left. He has been at the cocktail parties, and apparently nobody is telling him it’s a bad idea.

It looks like a Hail Mary pass, an act of desperation to prevent Trump’s candidacy. Or even like a case of using the power to the hilt before you lose it. Like those folks who, told the Second Coming was at hand, went out and copulated on the hilltops.

The Canadian media establishment seeming to turn on Trudeau seems to argue in the opposite direction. They are bought and paid for and have until now been reliable in running cover for the Liberals. Now they’re all turning on him at once. The simplest explanation is that they have decided there is no way they can cover for him this time; that he is going down regardless. So the best tactic is to cut their losses, try to recoup some credibility, and perhaps forestall the new government turning off the money taps. They no doubt know more than we of what is coming; they need to get on the winning side.

And then there is the South Carolina bill. It will surely not pass, but it also looks like terrible politics. It seems to confirm the fears of the left about the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Abortion has until now been considered a third rail; safest to steer clear of taking a stand. But this is like an open challenge to the woke; a declaration of war.

How do these puzzle pieces fit together?

Most people are not moral. They are concerned only with themselves and their personal welfare. If some group near them raises a cry of injustice, their first instinct will be to shut them up: crush them if necessary. They are being troublesome. If, however, the irate group wields significant power, the instinct is to give them what they want; in hopes they will settle down, and leave the rest of us alone. This is the instinct to appeasement, and it has proven profitable to many interest groups. But if the interest group persists for too long, and makes too many demands, a tipping point is eventually reached, at which it looks safer and less disruptive to declare all-out war than to continue to appease until they come for your own stuff.

This was the calculation that ended Robespierre’s Reign of Terror. Eventually, everyone else realized their only safety was to get rid of Robespierre. This was the French and British calculation when Hitler invaded Poland: if they did not finally take a stand somewhere, Hitler was not going to stop until he was powerful enough to devour England and France.

I think the left has recklessly and greedily pushed things to this tipping point. As a result, not just people on the right, but perhaps the amoral great bulk of the people, see that appeasing them is the greater danger. They can seize your bank account. They can lock you in your home. They can invade your bathrooms. They can mutilate your children. They can arrest and imprison you indefinitely on fake charges. They hate you for your skin colour, and there is nothing you can do about it. 

No surprise if the mood of appeasement and compromise vanishes. No surprise if there’s a rising. No surprise that there is no mood now for half-measures and compromise on abortion. People are already in the streets in France and the Netherlands. 

I only hope bodies hanging from streetlamps and the like will not happen in Canada. It will happen somewhere, but elites in many other places may learn the lesson by example before they too are engulfed. That the media here seems to be turning, and Pierre Poilievre seems to offer an orderly alternative, bodes well for Canada. But the situation is fluid.