The Silent Global Consensus
Why there can never be any accountability for governmental responses to Covid-19
A Global Failure
Perhaps the most important political and anthropological observation to be made about governmental responses to the Covid-19 crisis (what I call “Three Eleven”), involves the accentuated degree of congruity and symmetry between responses, almost bordering on uniformity—and that is regardless of ideological differences and forms of governance.
The most important lesson to be learned from this, I argue, is that every existing ideology known to humanity that reigns in any state, across all known forms of governance in existence, failed us all. At the very least, they failed to “stop” Covid, and responses usually did even more damage—this goes far beyond having the “right” preparedness plans. If Covid-19 posed a test to our systems of governance and political thought, then all of these must be judged to have failed—and we therefore have to rethink all of our received notions about politics and governmentality.
When I say that all ideologies and governments “failed,” I mean that they failed on their own terms. Whether it was “stopping the spread,” or “eliminating Covid,” no government achieved either. We can argue over whether matters would have been far worse had they done nothing at all, but then we also must consider the additional damage done by imposing those same measures (suicides, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, etc.). We must thus take into account the damage done in terms of increased political polarization; silencing of opposing perspectives; increased and/or deepened distrust in mass media and government agencies; loss of faith in public and private health systems; lost learning and childhood socialization; job losses; vastly increased public debts; inflation; and, businesses that shut down and never reopened. And that is just the short list.
I also argue that all ideologies and governments “failed” in terms of respecting both democracy (leaving aside the many states that were not democratic to begin with), defending individual human rights, protecting civil liberties, observing basic ethical principles, and ensuring adherence to the fundamental nature of the scientific process which must admit doubts, questions, debates, and dissenting views. None of the existing ideologies furnished enough questions (if any), or significant questions that posed any sort of challenge to the wave of global pandemicism (which I define as the intersection of catastrophism and authoritarianism).
Whether communist, socialist, liberal, left-nationalist, right-nationalist, localist, globalist, autarkic, left-populist, right-populist, conservative, religious, or ethnocentric—all the reigning ideologies failed the tests listed in the immediately preceding paragraph.
There is one possible exception among states in terms of outcomes, and it is the one that virtually no commentator or analyst mentions: Haiti. See the following for more precise details:
What also sets Haiti apart is that it had during Covid-19 a very weak state; a government of limited national support; widespread indifference to governmental proscriptions; and no clear ideology that ruled the population. Covid-19 barely registered in the country, whether in terms of infections and especially deaths, and the country largely carried on as if nothing had changed in the world. It was one of the few cases that came close to being a non-state, and where highly local, cultural solutions played the leading role.
The lesson we ought to have learned is that all ideologies failed the Covid test, and we have all been given an abundance of reasons for moving out of our comfort zones. Have we? Far from it. Instead, almost everyone is beating a hasty retreat to their partisan home base. Even this fact alone would be sufficient to negate all calls for accountability—as we continue to cheer for our home teams, we thus retain intact all the bases necessary to repeat the same pattern, with the same destructive logic.
The issue is not just rethinking the ideologies we have, or even developing new ideologies. We ought to be reflecting critically on the ideological mode of thinking itself, plagued as it is by a fatal flaw: its fundamental conflation of what ought to be with what is.
A Global Consensus
Socialist, Islamic, (post)liberal, conservative, theocratic, and ultra-right-wing governments all responded by using similar or identical measures. When one examines national responses to Covid-19, despite some important individual differences, what stands out is the repeating pattern: from country to country we saw lockdowns, masking, social distancing, travel bans, closed borders, banned public gatherings, and increased government control. Whether we are speaking of communist Cuba; socialist Venezuela; Western liberal democracies such as Trinidad & Tobago and Canada; right-wing autocracies such as El Salvador and Russia; theocratic states such as Vatican City; ethnic states such as Israel; or, Islamic states such as Afghanistan, there was a remarkable degree of correspondence between all of them. By April of 2020, more than half of the entire world’s population was under some form of lockdown.
The main differences were in the timing, extent, and enforcement of measures. Some of the most extreme measures were not to be found in all cases, such as curfews, banning citizens from travel, banning the use of public beaches and rivers, and taxing those who refused vaccination. Certainly each nation has its own particular story, with many fine details and nuances that we should not ignore, but that should not prevent us from seeing the broad patterns and overarching trends that generally prevailed.
If “globalization” was tested by Covid-19, then in many (sometimes surprising) ways it succeeded, I would argue. However, given that “globalization” is a notorious amoeba word, with no established consensus on how to define it—“success” can be measured in as partial a manner as one defines globalization. On the one hand, there was an orchestrated breakdown in international travel and the closure of borders (not recommended by the World Health Organization, it must be noted), and on the other hand, in order to reopen tourism-dependent economies there was a striking degree of global standardization in terms of what entry requirements were imposed by governments, and the various hygienic and distancing measures that were adopted by hotels. The “globalization” that we saw in the case of travel and tourism, involved first the widespread extent of border closures and travel bans, and then the standardization of methods to gradually reopen. It was “globalization” on the way down, and on the way back up.
“Globalization” could also be witnessed in the extreme replication of the standard menu of responses, from country to country, and this was without any apparent central coordination at the international level. This led some to the mistaken belief that all of the responses were modeled on China’s, when China’s own responses were not developed purely endogenously or autonomously in the first place—and were preceded by how Indian authorities responded to the Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala state in 2018. They were all clearly preceded by generations of modeling as presented in Hollywood movies, that featured striking, panic-driven, extreme responses, some of which China apparently reenacted.
It was thus worthy of note that the self-professed “anti-globalists” such as Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, pro-Brexit Boris Johnson, not to mention the autocratic Nayib Bukele, all followed the same basic global pattern of responses. This is not—and let’s put this illogical myth to rest—“because of Covid”: the virus had no Master’s degree in public administration, and had never run for office. Covid did not dictate the political response to Covid.
Where some see “globalization” being “broken” by Covid-19 responses, was in some of the strictly national policies that were implemented. We thus heard of “vaccine nationalism”: cases where certain governments hoarded vaccine supplies for their own citizens. There was also “vaccine imperialism”: states that championed their own nation’s manufacture of vaccines and used propaganda to publicly undermine the safety and/or effectiveness of vaccines produced by rival or competing nations and their firms. Global supply chains were famously disrupted, thus striking at the core of economic globalization. As mentioned, travel and tourism seemed to almost vanish for more than a year. Yet, in all of these cases, a globalized logic still prevailed: the assumed “necessity” of adopting “emergency” measures to address an “urgent crisis”.
Competing nations may not have agreed with each other about details, but they nonetheless agreed on the common goal, that Covid-19 demanded “immediate action” in order to “save lives”. Whether Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, or Xi Jinping, it did not matter: all of them proclaimed their need to do something to save lives.
The Worst Aspects of 3/11: A Personal Viewpoint
It has to be made clear where I personally stand, in order to assist the reader in understanding the filtering bias (my own, and the reader’s). I am a Canadian scholar, and I was one of the few Canadian academics to refuse the Covid-19 vaccines. My faculty union pressed for mandatory vaccination, but the university relented and then refused, citing unspecified legal constraints.
Along with several million other Canadians, I was also under effective house arrest for nearly a year—above and beyond extended lockdowns and curfews. This happened when we were banned from travelling by boat or ferry, by train, or by air. Like them, I navigated “no go zones”: sites that barred my entry without a “vax pass”. I never heard again from some “colleagues” when I told them we could not meet at a cafe when they visited Montreal, because I would not be allowed to enter with them.
In addition to these facts, several features stand out for me as the most egregious aspects of 3/11:
🔘 the invention of an extraordinary “emergency” that was used as the basis for the suspension of rights, censorship, attacks on dissidents, and the rise in centralized power and authoritarianism;
🔘 the militarized nature of the responses;
🔘 the arbitrary impositions by government authorities that were unwarranted, unjustified, and had no scientific basis;
🔘 the unnecessary, unwarranted economic damage leading to business closures, job losses, soaring prices, shortages, and, inflation;
🔘 the sheer malice in official decrees, threatened punishments, and disciplinary policies announced with an almost sadistic pleasure;
🔘 the encirclement of a targeted minority, destined for harsh treatment and exclusion;
🔘 the resort to questionable tools with little or no efficacy, that often backfired;
🔘 the state controlling population movements, imposing barriers; and,
🔘 fear-mongering and the calculated use of hysteria to divide people and heighten antagonisms and polarization.
I have also known a person who became severely ill from the Delta variant of Covid, and required hospitalization as their blood oxygen levels plunged to a dangerously low point. I have known a person who died within 24 hours of taking the Sinopharm vaccine—not one of the vaccines normally associated with lethal adverse effects. I got sick with Covid twice, first with the Omicron variant, and then with another, and the experiences were unpleasant but not severe—indeed, I have had much more severe colds and flus. And the fact of the matter is that in the first few weeks in March and April of 2020, I had high anxiety about Covid-19, since I understood virtually nothing about it. My main priority then was to quickly transition all of my courses into an online learning environment, something that would consume most of my time and energy for over a year.
My main objection to the Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca shots was quite simple. AstraZeneca was pulled from the Canadian market early on, because of those who died from blood clots. The two mRNA platforms seemed to me to be overkill for a cold/flu virus—I did not like the “genetic therapy” aspect, and did not want any extraneous genetic code inserted into my body. I also calculated that, despite my own health challenges, I would not need it.
Besides, one basic point should be remembered by all: before 2020, there was no vaccine that worked to stop coronaviruses; in 2025, that is still true.
Then my thinking evolved when it became a matter of unsolicited medical advice/propaganda from my employer (Concordia University), and governments bullying me into putting something strange into my body, with politicians presuming to interfere in, and usurp the relationship I had with my doctor. The threats, malice, and punishments that ensued only further hardened my refusal.
Neither a “Covid skeptic,” nor an “anti-vaxxer” (though I now question all vaccines), I am most certainly not a “science denier” or “anti-science”. It was precisely the failure of science, and scientists, in preventing science from sliding into a nakedly political and dogmatic scientism, that was one of the appalling elements of the crisis. Scientists have gone back to work, without the slightest hint of knowing or feeling that they did anything wrong.
These points suggest another distinguishing, global feature of the pandemic experience, defined by not what was present or what was practiced, but what was not performed or was almost entirely absent.
A Global Absence
What was globally absent were actors, organizations, or institutions at the highest levels of prominence and power, that stood up to defend those whose human rights, civil liberties, and economic or financial situations had been trampled upon. No memorable institutions or leaders denounced the curtailment of people’s right to protest, to possess their bank accounts, or to make their own decisions about their own bodies. Likewise, none defended the right of informed refusal, and how mandates made a dangerous mockery of informed consent. None of the top world leaders in the religious field condemned the violation of basic ethical principles of bodily autonomy and informed consent, or the creation of new forms of social exclusion and ostracism. None of the major mainstream media outlets that are present on the international plane, featured the voices of those opposed to lockdowns and mandates, except for highly editorialized pieces that were designed to ridicule opponents and lump them all together under the most extreme imaginable fringe identity (such as Q-Anon).
This meant that what opposition there was, took shape outside of the dominant or mainstream institutions of a given country. That had its advantages, but it also opened the door to many very pernicious actors. In English-speaking North America, resistant actors who often proclaimed their membership in an ad hoc “medical freedom” or “health freedom” movement, were sometimes motivated by sinister and extremist ulterior agendas. We thus found ourselves being sidled up to by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists; anti-immigrant groups; Sovereign Citizens (especially); and, a range of actors with particular axes to grind against virology, vaccinology, allopathic medicine, and so forth. This is not to mention those who exploited the grief of one quarter, to promote their own visibility, influence, and material rewards.
Some of the extremist actors firmly believe that the best way to face any disease, is to go into it “brave” and without fear, and also without medication—the “strongest [healthiest] will survive,” is a recurring argument that confirmed their adherence to ideas commonly associated with eugenics and Social Darwinism. Some denounced all treatment, including Ivermectin; others renounced only the vaccines. Some call themselves “pure bloods,” for not taking the vaccines, despite its disturbing racial undertones. They disregarded persons’ ages and individual medical histories, and they too took a one-size-fits-all approach, just like the authorities they condemned. Those who claimed to support the “Great Barrington Declaration,” would often preach “focused protection” in the morning, and then in the afternoon turn to ridiculing or belittling those actually practicing it. They often stressed the importance of natural immunity—which genuinely is important and valuable, but which also has its shortcomings. (For example, a person infected with one strain of Dengue, and acquiring natural immunity for that strain, will face much more severe consequences when infected by another of the strains, due to Antibody-Dependent Enhancement [ADE]. Those opposed to vaccines spoke of ADE as exclusively being the result of taking vaccines, and not from getting infected by viruses. They did something similar with myocarditis, arguing that the spike proteins derived from vaccination were distributed throughout the body—but they never spoke of the same thing happening as a result of Covid infection, or they downplayed it.)
When it came to opposing lockdowns, mandates, and other restrictions, there was no popular, grassroots champion, no one who can now claim a monopoly on opposition. There was no equivalent of a Nelson Mandela or Malcolm X on our side…not even the equivalent of a minor Meghan Markle for that matter. There was never a single clarion speech, that one “anthem” of the “anti-vaxxers” that we all remember by heart. With perhaps the sole exception of Giorgio Agamben, who deserves a mountain of prizes for his courageous work, there was no clear anti-pandemicist intellectual of any stature. What there is now, however, is an industry devoted to the production of alibis and blame—with many convenient partisan exemptions being carved out.
There Will Never be a “Nuremberg 2.0”
To this day, many on the oppositional side in North America demand “accountability” for the harms done by governments’ responses to Covid. Their favourite targets, in Canada, are primarily Justin Trudeau (former prime minister), and Dr. Theresa Tam (former chief public health officer of Canada); in the US, the culprits most frequently named are Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.
But one name is almost always absent in most of the oppositional narratives: Donald J. Trump.
This prominent absence is one good reason why there can never be a “Nuremberg 2.0”. If it were to happen, and be directed according to hypocritical and dishonest double standards, then it should never be allowed to happen. (We should also remember that the original Nuremberg Trials were an example of “victor’s justice,” and thus the atrocities of the Allies were never called to account.)
Let us recall some of the basic facts. Trump publicly declared a “War on Covid” (he always seems to lust after the title of “war president,” when not posing as the “peace president”). Trump was the one who shut down international travel to the US—nobody else had that authority. Trump was responsible for decreeing and implementing “Operation Warp Speed” which immediately favoured Pfizer and Moderna. Trump militarized the response, particularly with the contracted manufacture, procurement, oversight, and distribution of the vaccines. Here is a scene from the 2011 Hollywood movie, Contagion (which I have elsewhere called “Event 201 for the masses”), about militarized “countermeasures,” as it melts into a press conference with Donald Trump:
Trump attempted total federal control in a mad power grab, threatening states by cutting off funding if they reopened before he said they could. He drafted the blueprints for lockdowns, and enforced lockdowns. He kept Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins in charge. He ramped up the federal budget to record levels, inflation soared, and he severely damaged the US economy. He signed the budget-exploding CARES Act into law in 2020—which is what financed the lockdowns. Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services issued the Emergency Use Authorization for the vaccines. The only thing Trump did not do is to slap a tariff on Covid-19.
Meanwhile, many of Trump’s supporters continue to argue that he was effectively just an innocent bystander, something like a spectator. He is not an epidemiologist, after all, they remind us. And of course he was “tricked” by the wicked Dr. Fauci. Apparently, Fauci also tricked Trump into giving him a medal of commendation on Trump’s very last day in office. In other words, the Grand Master of 5D Chess, was fooled—and yet was somehow still deserving of another term in office, despite his apparent abdication of responsibility and his obvious lack of judgment and the ability to competently make decisions.
Those using this argument—that Trump is not a medical expert and was thus tricked—do not realize or understand even when it is explained to them that this defense does two things:
It establishes that Trump is a gullible fool and incompetent. That means they should never have voted for him again—but they did, which makes them fools.
It means that any other leader, anywhere in the world, who was not an expert epidemiologist, should receive the same absolution.
Therefore, let us list just some of the other leaders who are also not expert epidemiologists: Justin Trudeau; Jacinda Ardern; Anthony Albanese; Andrew Cuomo; Francois Legault; Doug Ford; and too many others to name.
“We” are supposed to demand “accountability” for figures like Trudeau and Ardern—but not Trump, never Trump. “We” are supposed to continue litigating Covid—except when it comes to Trump’s role. “We” should do well to remember all of the arbitrary, authoritarian, and militarized “countermeasures,” but not when they involve Trump.
Only Trump gets this special exemption.
Thus they absolve a president—the “Commander-in-Chief”—of all responsibility. The buck never stops with him, unless it is something allegedly glorious for which he readily claims all credit.
We learn at least three things as a result. First, those pardoning Trump are dishonest, partisan extremists who inhabit narrow little echo chambers, and should never be allowed anywhere near a tribunal—except as defendants.
Second, MAGA never truly opposed any of the Covid countermeasures: they just opposed the persons and parties that enforced them after Trump was defeated in the 2020 election—whether they admit this or not. Their real resentment, which burned white hot with envy, was that they were not the ones who had the power to do what the Democrats were doing. That’s all, just projection. Once back in power, they now do much the same and much worse.
The third thing we learn is quite disturbing: when you are ready to pardon one of the chief criminals, there can be no serious allegation let alone a trial for “crimes against humanity” committed in the name of fighting Covid.
The complicity and whitewashing continues on the MAGA side. First, there is the continued revisionism surrounding Trump’s chief role in Operation Warp Speed, with a plethora of excuses…that could also be used to excuse all other leaders.
Second, some have maintained or revived some novel and particularly bizarre arguments, that put a giant question mark over their sanity. One of these absurd notions is that the vaccines, when Trump was still in office, were different—they were totally harmless—these they call the “Trump Vaccines”. Alex Jones was one of the propagandists behind this argument—and it was pure science fiction, disinformation at its craziest:
What came after the “Trump Vaccines” (i.e., “sugar water”)? Why, the “Deep State Vaccines,” of course—after all, this is life imitating a cheap comic book.
Third, and using the same garbled logic as “I didn’t break your glass. You never gave me a glass. And anyway, it was already broken when you gave it to me”—Trump, who was not guilty of enforcing lockdowns, now imposed lockdowns to save Americans. This is where we come to “the lockdowns saved us from FEMA camps”—with the argument later broadened to include the whole of Operation Warp Speed. Figures such as David Sorensen (Stop World Control) and Alex Jones (InfoWars) asserted that Operation Warp Speed, and the early release of vaccines, prevented a dystopian scenario involving mass detention in FEMA camps. You can see one of the documentaries that came out of this, on Rumble. I recommend it: it is an example of Hollywood scripting oppositional narratives.
Unfortunately, there are still more reasons why there will never, and should never be a “Nuremberg 2.0”. One of these is that some of the chief ultra-right MAGA, and MAGA-adjacent grifters, are totally denying their own role in promoting harsh lockdowns and the severest possible restrictions, back in 2020. Phillip Magness has done a stellar job in Reason, exposing the words and roles of figures such as Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Curtis Yarvin, Mike Cernovich, and Jack Posobiec. These were the sternest advocates for the most authoritarian of all measures, which would have exceeded by very far anything done by Biden, and probably would have exceeded China’s Zero Covid approach. If you want to see the clearest possible examples of “biofascism,” then read what they had to say.
When significant parts of the opposition are revealed as fake, certain inescapable conclusions come to light: one is that, once again, a global consensus prevailed. The second is that none shall be held to account by hypocrites, especially when the hypocrites in question have little power. Today, continued calls for “accountability” have been reduced to two basic functions in North America: right-wing virtue signalling designed to shame partisan opponents, and as an exploitative venture in grief-farming. Meanwhile, the privileged place of ideology has been preserved, and with it our fundamental dysfunctionality—and that, unfortunately, is true everywhere.
Addendum: This article is of course very much focused on North America. One could write a similar article, in at least a dozen different ways—more, if tailored to specific countries—each arriving at the same basic conclusion. The response pattern was global, and governments of every ideological hue participated in it, and each did significant damage to their society, and in almost every case there was widespread popular support, or at least tacit consent, for the measures that were imposed. If the original Nuremberg Trials were an example of “victor’s justice,” then who are the victors in the case of the pandemic? That would be all of the governments who followed much the same response pattern, and those that supported them. Nowhere are the victors those who were without power over the state. Thus calls for a “Nuremberg 2.0” are, to be very polite, wishful thinking. At worst, they are what is argued in the last paragraph above.
I found this a really helpful and informative article. I agree, calls for accountability will go nowhere. But what about a call for close analysis of how bad decisions were made? Such a call might go better if punishment and blame were put aside, and result in a culture better able to correct and avoid faulty decision making.
I feel dismayed that so few people seem to be reading your articles.