The politics of Covid - a year on

The continued growth of active "red-pilled" citizenry

A year ago, I wrote this piece, “The politics of Covid”, based on a talk delivered a few days before. In many quarters it was greeted with muttering about “conspiracy theories” or “misinformation”. Even people who very much supported PANDA’s perspectives said they thought we “had gone too far”.

On the anniversary of the piece, it seems that people who read it now experience it very differently. These days I’m frequently sent a link to it, with comments along the lines of “this captures the whole picture very succinctly”. A few weeks ago, one supporter, who had only recently been pointed to it and failed to notice the year of publication, complained that we were “months behind the curve”.

A possibility is that the past year’s revelations about censorious pressure on media companies emanating from the White House, CDC, European Union and other state actors have made people more cognisant of the extent to which propaganda and behavioural manipulation have been a feature of the Covid policy response.

That’s plausible, but I don’t think it captures the salient reality. The world has divided between the “blue-pilled normies”, who believe that governments act with citizens’ interests at heart, and “red-pilled skeptics”, who believe that governments act to increase the power and wealth of politicians and career bureaucrats, and always have done so. It is not surprising that this divide groups people quite reliably when it comes to subsidiary issues.

People skeptical about the Covid panic and its various manifestations—lockdowns, masks and vaccine mandates—are also unlikely to be moved by claims of a “climate emergency”, by multiple gender theory, by the “Putin went mad” explanation for the Ukranian conflict, or by fears of a near-term “AI singularity”. They are alive to the notion that the military-industrial complex is the main causative agent of violent conflicts; that Big Pharma, Big Food and Big Tech are relentless and morally flexible maximisers of economic rents; and that mutual infiltration of governments and large, monopolistic corporations, is a given, and dangerous.

I agree with my colleagues who are of the opinion that the population of red-pilled skeptics has increased spectacularly. Friends and acquaintances whose views once departed little from what the talking man on the TV said to them seem now to be questioning a lot of what is presented to them as reality.

That’s a very healthy thing. In my view of the world, reality is unitary, and correspondence with reality is a key element of the good. What supranational organisations and deep state entities have done over the last few years is to wage a post-truth information war that has sought to take ordinary people further away from reality.

Popular support for the various elements of Covid malarkey has waned dramatically. The wholly corrupt officials of the FDA can authorise whatever infant vaccines they wish, but they ultimately run into reality when they observe that the vast majority of parents have wisely perceived that they are not honest brokers. Vaccine take-up for children has remained stubbornly negligible. Robert F Kennedy’s book, “The Real Anthony Fauci”, which sold a million copies despite serious censorship, influenced many. Watching the documentary movie, free to view until 27 October 2022, will move many more.

The swelling of the red-pilled population is perhaps the best thing to emerge from the Covid panic. The resolutely blue-pilled will look increasingly foolish, naïve and cowardly as that process continues. The red-pilled are taking on all manner of wokery in corporations, clubs and school boards. Long may that continue.

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Thanks for reading this article by Nick Hudson.
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