Ronald Reagan famously said that any government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you’ve got. The power of George Orwell’s 1984’s total state submission was the theme of 2020 as governments suspended civil rights, Big Tech censored free speech and the results of the presidential election showed clear evidence of electoral shenanigans. Here’s how Usual Suspects covered a pivotal year in Canada and the U.S.

What’s most interesting about this college of Covid cardinals is that they have managed to get almost all the major calls wrong. Not once. Not twice. But at virtually all the moments of crisis they went left when they should have gone right. And then flipped those earlier commandments 180 degrees without batting an eye. The phoney death projections, flattening the curve, border closing, masks, lockdowns, the threat to children, the ability to have a vaccine in nine months. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Tragically wrong.

Let’s be honest, “What if one of the people who died was your mother or grandmother?” is the most Boomer thing ever. Awash in sentimentality, it’s supposed to stigmatize the other while advertising personal virtue. It says, “No one I know should ever die in a pandemic. And you have blood on your hands for suggesting so.” Other people? Fill yer’ boots.

The implications are unmistakable. China will be looking to leverage the Biden family’s shakedown business as soon as January 20. They will come calling to make good on the deal they’re made. In short, Biden is hopelessly compromised in the way that he and his Democrats friends falsely claimed Trump was by the Russians.

Any revival of Quebec nationalism is terrible news for Justin Trudeau. Not in the way it was for Papa Pierre. Pierre was trying to keep Quebec in Confederation. Trudeau the Younger is trying to keep other provinces in Canada. He knows Québec will do what it wants. The minute Québec heads for the exit Alberta and Saskatchewan will hold the door for them. “After you, M. Legault.”

In earlier times a chastened Andrew Cuomo might have kept a low profile to avoid criticism. But whatcha’ gonna’ do when the media people who are supposed to critique you are the ones giving you hardware? Cuomo knew that blaming Trump gave him a hall pass to do whatever he pleased.

The Reset means Belgian bureaucrats, daffy climate cultists, media virtue pigs, grifters from the first-class lounge and positively furious feminists and race hustlers will be shaping Canada’s fortunes in a global Kumbaya. Paid for by Canadians who are not allowed at the reception in Biarritz.

If there is one thing Canada still can defend it is our democracy. With simple pencil and paper, Canada is continuing the noblest traditions of citizenry at election time. Without resort to technology or intellectual frippery, Canada has a national election in six weeks. Election night is over by midnight. Citizens are assured the results are accurate. All of this simplicity seems to have escaped Americans this year.

In the public mind Big Media has given up on balanced and fair. They either couldn’t or wouldn’t find the Shy Trump vote in their polling. How these firms justify themselves in the future is a mystery. But you know they'll re-invent themselves under a different flag, especially under a Swampy Biden government. Denial is more than a river in Egypt for the consultant class.

The Justin Riddle: The same people who blithely forgive everything he’s done are the same ones whose eyeballs roll back in their heads saying, “How can anyone support Trump after what he’s done?”

The real challenge to society north and south today is class. It’s not about Democrats or Republicans or Liberals. It’s about the expert class against the people they’ve purported to lead since the 1960s. You see, the expert class, robed in authority and wisdom, has blotted its copybook on many fronts. People noticed— people died—because the health geniuses got just about everything wrong when Covid-19 arrived.

For now, the Fear Merchants push Doomsday scenarios to petrified Boomers and their kids. As long as they’ve got that going they’ll never have to answer the toughest question: What’s your exit plan?

Liberalism is deader than Tutankhamen, just waiting for the embalmer to finish the job. American liberalism is not far behind. The radical left is on the move— and it won’t be pretty.

Ontario premier Doug Ford is telling his fellow citizens that Ontario could be entering “a second wave” of Covid-19. Naturally this dark warning has sent the Trillium province into panic, many demanding more lockdowns/ mask mania/ school closures. It’s unsettling. Especially since what Ford is describing is not a second wave of Covid-19 at all.

The Ginsburg passing effect is about one thing: the 1973 legal elephant known as Roe v. Wade, widely— and erroneously— considered to make abortion legal up to the point of birth. In the Washington Examiner, Timothy Carney writes, “Roe invented a constitutional right to have an abortion up until the moment before birth. Only about 18% of the public supports that position, according to a recent poll by Marist and NPR.” But most American women incorrectly believe that revoking Roe v. Wade will make all abortions illegal. That assumption— stoked by progressive media— has the support of a majority of Americans.

The real story of COVID19 is not found in author Bob Woodward’s book on Donald Trump, timed for maximum impact during the U.S. presidential election. The real book of Covid19 won’t be written honestly for years, when the success or failures of masks, lockdowns, vaccines and political opportunism have run their course.

The announcement from General Mark Miley that the military won’t interefere in the 2020 election reminded many of a classic 1962 movie Seven Days In May in which a rogue general (Burt Lancaster) seeks to overthrow a president (Frederick March) who tries to negotiate a disarmament treat with the Soviet Union. A loyal Marine colonel (Kirk Douglas) foils the plot by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Many consider it one of the classic American political movies. As the American 2020 Vote-A-Palooza heads toward a very uncertain finish, it might be time to list the best election/ political dramas in U.S. cinema history.

Give Steven A. Smith credit. He knows what his bosses at ESPN (and Disney) want to hear. Interceptions are less important than intersectionality. Oppression, not pressuring the quarterback. Go guilty or go home. As seen by its capitulation to #BLM no league or its broadcaster has tried harder to appease its black workforce (or the Chinese running shoe manufacturers).

We know one thing. Former NFL running back Ray Rice must be some pissed. He viciously assaulted a woman and his football career was over. #JacobBlakeAmericanRapist sexually assaults a woman, steals her car and kids, pulls a knife— and @NFL wants to put him on a postage stamp.

Erin O’Toole may want to bury Leslyn Lewis’ conservative platform as he panders to the Toronto Star and CBC. But if he wants to succeed as prime minister he’ll need to broaden his appeal past the climate change/ Pro-choice/ pop culture memes of social media’s chattering class.