The 21st century has already experienced a world war: in the most literal sense, the entire world was engulfed by the Shamdemic. It involved death in relatively small numbers but enough to invoke full-blown politically capitulation, and it collapsed national economies, not so much their destruction, but instead their takeover by elites. The timing was perfect: it’s not a coincidence that populists were poised to win around the world, only to be stymied at the last moment by the sanctimony of medicine.

The Shamdemic’s biggest victim was trust: every bit of information about it is shrouded in intentional uncertainty, and anybody who questions the official narrative is dismissed, insulted & censored. Just look at the aftermath: it crippled already fearful personalities, enabled authoritarianism, undermined experts, discredited science, fomented civil war, exposed the judiciary as feckless, emboldened our enemies, and alienated half the population. A decade from now, America will either be embarrassed by our reaction or we’ll be totally converted by it but we’ll never recover.