Symmetrical Opposition

When it’s Regimism A vs. Regimism B, the Winner is always Regimism

It was 2021, and I was asked by one of the Canadian organizations against vaccine mandates and pandemicist restrictions to come to Toronto to speak to a gathering. I wanted more detail; at the very least I needed to know who the audience might be, and what would be the setting. Trying to encourage me to come, they said Dr. Paul Alexander would also be addressing...“the rally”. “Wait a second, what rally is that?” I had never spoken at a rally before (and still have not), so I became nervous. At first, I was not told of any rally at all: this just came out almost by accident, after days of corresponding and speaking on the phone. I thought I had to prepare a paper to present, and not a short speech that would be shouted to partisans. It turns out that it was a political rally to support Maxime Bernier, the leader of the right-wing People’s Party of Canada (PPC). Nobody asked me first what my politics might be. They just automatically assumed: (ultra) right-wing. And they also assumed that if I was against lockdowns and mandates, then I must be a right-winger, just like them. I had little to do with that group after that, but it still took years for such episodes to really sink in.

Mirror Images

What strikes me now is the degree of falsity in the ranks of the opposition to pandemicism, in the ranks of the self-described “health freedom movement”. Over a year ago, I wrote about how that “movement” was fractured, as it contained—at a minimum—about 26 different factions. One faction will call another “controlled opposition,” but it seems to me that every faction, and the “movement” as a whole, is controlled in a much deeper sense than the conspiratorial accusation implies. The opposition to pandemicism was itself thoroughly structured by pandemicism, not just because it opposed this or that policy, but because it was the mirror image—and thus a part of the entire regimist exercise. Very much like the pandemic Hollywood movies I have covered, the entire scene now seems to have been scripted.

Here is a sketch, obviously in broad brush strokes, of the ways in which the supposed opposition in fact mimicked or mirrored what it claimed to oppose, through a process of direct inversion. Thus we see some of the positions that this movement claimed to be “against,” followed by the positions that they are “for”:

Against: Their White Coats.
For: Our White Coats.

Against: Leadership by their technocrats and transhumanists.
For: Leadership by our technocrats and transhumanists.

Against: How they interpret “the data”.
For: How we interpret “the data”.

Against: Their “wonder drug,” the mRNA shots.
For: Our “wonder drug”: Ivermectin.

Against: “Everyone should get the Covid shots”.
For: “Nobody should get the Covid shots”.

Against: Claiming millions killed by the Covid-19 spike protein.
For: Claiming millions killed by mRNA-produced spike protein.

Against: Covid-19 causes myocarditis, with the spike protein travelling throughout the body.
For: mRNA causes myocarditis, with the spike protein travelling throughout the body.

Against: “Covid-19 is deadly and a risk to everyone”.
For: “The Covid shots are deadly and a risk to everyone”.

Against: Masking, because it’s ridiculous and achieves nothing.
For: Grounding/Earthing (despite lack of proof of it producing any health benefits).

Against: “The anti-vaxxers are a Death Cult!”
For: “The Covidians are a Death Cult!”

Against: “The anti-vaxxers are fascist authoritarians”.
For: “The Covidians are communist totalitarians”.

Against: “Globalists” invoking the Nuremberg Principles and the UN Charter in condemning Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
For: Invoking the Nuremberg Code and more recent UN declarations to oppose administration of the mRNA Covid shots.

Against: Closing borders to keep out infection (unless it’s infected illegal immigrants).
For: Closing borders to keep out unwanted migrants.

Against: Trudeau calling Canada “post-national”.
For: Joining the US and deleting Canada as an independent nation.

Against: “Own nothing and be happy”.
For: Giving up their own country, to be happy Americans.

Against: Foreign interests intervening in Canadian politics.
For: The US under Trump intervening in Canadian politics.

Against: Retaliating against the US by impeding trade.
For: Blocking main border access points to the US during the Freedom Convoy.

Against: Governments restricting the freedom, sovereignty, and self-determination of persons.
For: US imperialism eliminating Canadian sovereignty.

Against: Globalism (dominated by American interests).
For: Americanism.

Against: Billionaires intervening in politics (Soros, Zuckerberg, etc.).
For: Even richer billionaires intervening in politics (Musk).

Where the Trail of Breadcrumbs Leads

I have learned that all the key points of the opposition against lockdowns, restrictions, mandates, etc.—what I refer to as pandemicism—were all too often mere breadcrumbs dropped from the hands of partisan actors and grifters. We were supposed to eat what was dropped, like communion wafers, until we reached our ultimate “destination”. This was like van Gennep’s rites of passage: separation from “normie” society by rejecting mandates - the transition period of exclusion, loss, and wandering - integration into “red pill” society.

There was no shortage of this so-called “mass formation psychosis” on our side either. Most people who (ab)use this piece of pop psychology, appear to believe that “mass formation psychosis” occurs whenever there is fear-driven collective hysteria. So were we really above fear? Some might remember how many times we warned, or heard others among us speak with real dread about the following: detention camps; Covid being a bioweapon; the “kill shots”/“clot shots” being a bioweapon; graphene oxide; CBDCs were going to be imposed, along with digital IDs; and, my favourite, microchips in the vaccines. There was substantial fear-mongering among the anti-Covidian class of podcasters. Rumble would probably not have survived and thrived without this circulation of collective hysteria, on our side.

It turns out that oppositional politics can latch onto, or even invent their own “emergencies”. Thus we had rule by emergency, and opposition by emergency. Neither side was so impressed by the nature of the alleged emergency, that they could not stop to wish death on opponents. Both sides reciprocated almost equally when it came to wishing death on the other side, and expressing surprise and disappointment that not more had died. One side laughed when an unvaccinated person allegedly died from Covid; the other side laughed when a vaccinated person allegedly died from the shots. Resentment lingers on both sides, as 99%+ of the vaccinated survived the shots, and 99%+ of the unvaccinated survived Covid.

Where the two sides differed the most, however, is on the level of coercive power: one side had all the resources of the state, and the other side did not. But even here that difference in power was mitigated—specifically in 2025, with the election of Trump. Now the Canadian ultra-right could pretend/assume that Trump had their backs. With this imported prosthetic “power,” they could hope to turn the tables on their enemies, to the point of taking their whole country away. Leaning on the US as a crutch, nodding and clapping in unison when their favourite big bully spoke, they could almost pretend to be in charge. Team Canada now meets Team Imperialist.

What disturbs me the most is the realization that for many of those around me, this whole struggle was never really about “vaccine safety” or “lockdowns causing job losses” or defending “personal medical freedom”. This was, for far too many, a moment for gratuitous opposition: opportunistic and expedient. The litany of gripes were mere steppingstones on a path. Most of these disparate groups in Canada, the majority of them Conservative or PPC in orientation, had a mission. One was to defeat Trudeau. The second, it turns out, is to uphold Trump, even at the expense of Canada. After five years of working with these people on common issues, such as challenging vaccine mandates, I discovered that at the drop of the hat they will scorn, ridicule, and lambaste you if you object to Trump and criticize his policies. If that is all it takes to be rejected, then that is all they were about.

This obviously does not apply to all organized groups, let alone all individuals. One group to which I belonged, which I will always remember fondly and for which I have great respect and admiration, was Canadian Academics for Covid Ethics (CA4CE). I have not a single complaint or criticism to make about that association, and they stood far apart from the rest. They did not try to do too much; they did not claim to be experts on everything; and they thus kept their focus narrow and simple. The same was true of Quebec Academic Resistance.

Regimism and its Fleas

What concerns me the most is the extent to which regimism has won, which has obvious, deleterious consequences for democracy and human rights. Whether it is the figure of Trudeau or Trump, makes no difference at all: they share in common a preference for arbitrary impositions, elevated social barriers, increased costs of living, and authoritarian governance.

This bundle of malice has been normalized, starting with 9/11, increasing through 3/11, and now with Trump’s imperial presidency and its invention of a whole series of “emergencies”. The so-called “opposition” (what is now the regime proper in the US) now bears all the imprints of a monster: dehumanizing opponents with ease; bearing dark grudges; foul disregard for others; and believing one is the eternal victim who must exact bloody revenge and fiery destruction against all who differ.

Statism has won too, of course. We now have a wide range of supposed “conservatives” and even some professed “libertarians” who apparently love action by the state in dictating how business is done, who produces what, where, and for what price. On the left there was a similar phenomenon (at least in Quebec), where professed anarchists marched through the streets for months demanding free, publicly supported tertiary education, i.e., action by the state.

Until we can completely reconstruct and redefine the nature and role of the state, any “solutions” will have to be local and individual. And surely one solution has to be avoidance of all movements and groups that uphold regimism, whether left, right, centre, up, or down, it does not matter. Finally, it’s best to remember that old saying: if you lie down with dogs, you’ll wake up with fleas.

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