How the elites govern by ’emergency powers’ instead of democracy: Here is the list

As progressive policies find increasing backlash in western democracies, the growing tendency of the elites is to justify bypassing both public sentiment and political accountability by using “emergency powers”. Naturally, there is little need for special action when the elected government implements policies that the deep state agrees with. Instead, much the opposite is currently taking place across the West — whether by activist bureaucracies seeking to curtail the power of elected executives or by governments struggling against entrenched bureaucrats.

During the pandemic years, political and social ostracism was implemented more subtly through mainstream media conditioning whereas social media was heavily censured through backchannel political pressure and corporate bias. For instance, the revelations of the Twitter files revealed how the European Commission and the White House had repeatedly colluded or pushed for heavy censorship of pandemic sceptics and critics.

Nevertheless, the transfer of negotiating authority on vaccines to Ursula von der Leyen, and her subsequent concealment of the negotiated terms with Big Pharma, all were justified by “emergency measures”.

This Pfizergate affair would ultimately result in retaliation against Frédéric Baldan, the activist who had sued von der Leyen, in the form of ‘exceptional’ disbarment as a lobbyist and even the freezing of his bank accounts.

Much the same took place in Trudeau’s Canada with the truckers protest. The “liberal” Canadian PM invoked the Emergencies Act, in order to remove the protestors and also subsequently to freeze their bank accounts – even though later inquiries revealed the police had never recommended such measures to the government. This was an especially egregious policy considering the Canadian truckers were demonstrating, precisely because their livelihoods had been rendered unsustainable by the government’s lockdowns — those also of an “exceptional” nature, and without federal compensations.

In the United States, it was January 6, 2021 that was weaponised to invoke exceptional measures. Whereas other riots in US history – most of those, leftist in nature – had not elicited special measures, J6 drove the Biden Department of Justice prosecutors to imprison protestors without habeas corpus and even to attempt to reinterpret constitutional provisions such as the Obstruction of Legal Proceedings Statute, in order to artificially and cruelly inflate sentences.

In the same year, the government of Nayib Bukele resorted to dismissing the judges of the Supreme Court of El Salvador, in order to be able to implement his draconian measures aimed at decreasing the rampage of violence in the Central American state. Without this action taken in the country’s parliament, the European inspired and International Law attached, excessively guarantor system, would have deadlocked Bukele’s reforms. The replacement of judges became systemic in El Salvador prompting accusations of authoritarianism but Bukele has maintained the exceptional measures were taken against some of the Supreme Court’s own overreach.

Eerily similar to J6 were the events of January 8^th 2023, in Brasilia. The South American country however, would not be satisfied with persecuting those present on J8 but, combined with exceptional “sanitary safety” measures against dissenters, an overall purge of media supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro took place, resulting in an unprecedented judicially based authoritarian system – the first kritarchy (in which judges are the ruling authority) of the 21^st century. Hundreds of right-wing activists are now living in exile in the US, Argentina and Europe. For those who chose to stay in Brazil, life is either lived under censorship or they were actively persecuted and imprisoned.

A case in point is that of former Bolsonaro aid Filipe Martins who was arrested in 2024. In parallel to what happened in the US, it is Brazil’s Federal Police that serves as the armed reach of the deep state, in Brazil bizarrely directly mandated by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) ‘super judge’ Alexandre de Moraes. Martins was accused of being a co-conspirator in a plotted coup against the constitutional order. While his defence team has systematically disproven all conjured up circumstantial evidence against him, the court is not impartial and ‘new evidence’ appears at every turn to frame him for new crimes. In 2025, he was thrown into an overcrowded prison and with his political allegiances making him a target of criminal gangs, he is forced to solitary confinement.

The latest attempt at emergency rule is the European Commission’s ReArm initiative of last year, shouldered by the proposed Security and Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument. Brussels seeks to appropriate funds for SAFE through Article 122 (TFEU) but this article is in no way respective to the domain of defence, rather having been meant for “the area of energy”. Furthermore, the type of emergency aid invoked pertains to “where a Member State is in difficulties or is seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control (…)”. In sum, this article was conceived to facilitate the transfer of financial aid to member-states in cases of natural disasters or energetic disruptions and is in no way related to the domain of defence. Rather, article 122 is an abusive recourse clearly motivated by its exceptionalist phrasing.

Only this could justify resorting to an obscure article since everywhere in the treaties, all main dispositions explicitly forbid the Commission from any competences in the military arena, namely articles 4 and 41 of the EU Treaty.

Civil society has mobilised against the ReArm scheme with NGOs such as the Bon Sens Association or the Trezeno Institute filing complaints with the European Ombudsman but the office of  the OmbudsmanTeresa Anjinho has repeatedly rejected competence in the matter.

Unlike arbitrary rule cynically exploiting public panic in specific states, Brussels brings the perverse power grab to the supranational level. The permanent subversive bureaucracy of the fonctionnaires is eyeing the last obstacles to its dystopian rule: Finance and defence.

Globalism has become an immediate national security threat to Western values and sovereignty. Only patriots stand in its way.