With most Canadians enjoying the holiday season and the imminent year’s end representing a time for reflection, I happened to notice an all-too-familiar spectacle unfold this past Boxing Day.Yet again, pro-Palestinian protesters caused a ruckus, marching through Toronto’s famous Eaton Centre, chanting slogans, leaving shoppers bemused (or just plain annoyed), and demanding action against Israel..It made me wonder if this was really about Gaza anymore. It certainly doesn’t seem to be about changing Canadian foreign policy.What we’ve been watching play out since Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel — on university campuses and in major cities — points to something much deeper.In 2017, an online political and cultural commentator using the alias Spandrell penned an essay that made the rounds among right-wing forums, where he described a phenomenon he called “Biological Leninism” — or Bio-Leninism for short.The idea is simple enough: Leninism wasn’t just about economics and ideology; it was about power and status.It worked by taking people who were at the bottom rung in the social hierarchy and elevating them — not because of competence or merit, but because of loyalty and grievance.Bio-Leninism, to quote Mike Maxwell in his book The Cultured Thug Handbook, is "just Leninism with a new firmware update: promote the dregs not of class but of biology."For example, take the mugshots of Antifa members after they’ve been unmasked. They’re usually on par with the before-and-after photos of meth addicts..According to Spandrell, socialism succeeds in gaining followers because it promises people higher status in a social hierarchy.“Socialism is catnip because it promises status to people who, deep down, know they shouldn't have it,” Spandrell says.Bio-Leninism is the new updated version for the current multicultural, liberal Canada, where every protest, regardless of what it proclaims to be about, has an undercurrent of the same left-wing ideology.It’s the same in the United States. In June, John A. Johnson, PhD, a professor emeritus of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, stated that 32 of the 34 largest single-day protests ever recorded in that country promoted left-wing causes, not conservative ones.Instead of class, Bio-Leninism operates along identity lines, and instead of a single party, it’s distributed across government, universities, NGOs, media, and corporations across Canada and the Western world.“It’s all the more dangerous because it’s invisible,” Maxwell says.“Worse, the leftward ratchet never stops. There can never be enough ‘progress’ — it multiplies out of control like an ideological cancer and will eventually kill its host. And unlike Russian Leninism, there’s no limiting principle to how much it can favour ethnic minorities.”This brings us back to the pro-Palestinian protests.According to a 2024 Angus Reid Institute poll cited by Kelsie Walker of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, 64% of Canadians believe police give preferential treatment to certain protest groups.Furthermore, Canadians “of all political affiliations largely feel that police response and engagement at protests is not applied consistently,” with 68% of Conservative, 60% of Liberal, and 73% of NDP voters polled saying so.By now, it is fairly undeniable that left-leaning causes, such as the pro-Palestinian protests, are given unfair leeway in comparison to causes deemed to be right-leaning — such as the Freedom Convoy, for example.This has carried on into 2025, as we’ve now had almost two years of pro-Palestinian protesters blocking public roads, occupying campuses, storming buildings, and disrupting shopping malls.In one case earlier this year, at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), a pro-Israel student event was attacked when masked pro-Palestinian protesters stormed the venue, leaving one person injured and causing property damage.It’s getting hard to argue the benefit of the doubt is evenly distributed now.Lawyer and journalist Caryma Sa’d has been documenting some of these protests around Toronto over the past year..She’s been doing numerous polls on X to find out what the best videos of protesters and activists were for her ProtestMania series.It’s an absolute treasure trove of clips, with everything from pro-Palestine protesters to LGBT activists and, of course, the infamous Brantford Boomer..While the videos have gotten a large number of views, I can’t help but think viewers are watching with a mix of fascination and exhaustion.Perhaps Canadians are watching and reacting because the behaviour that is unfolding in these scenes is increasingly alien and surreal compared to normal social expectations.Polish clinical psychologist Andrzej Lobaczewski dubbed people such as these protesters as pathocrats; individuals who attempt to reshape institutions to suit their own psychological needs and who also invert moral language so healthy norms are portrayed as oppressive, and pathological behaviour is normalized.As Maxwell states, “exposure of normal people to the pathocrat twists their worldview and involves them in the pathocrat’s dysfunction. Over time, normal people become dysfunctional, and the society more and more extreme.”Maybe these protesters keep getting a pass because many of the people running our institutions think an awful lot like them.As 2025 draws to a close and 2026 opens, it appears we can expect more of the same in the near future..There is already another pro-Palestine protest set to happen on New Year’s Eve in Montreal, and unless something catastrophic happens there, you can be sure it’s a good bet that local politicians and leaders will indulge the mob.But everyday Canadians are noticing these protests increasingly seem less about peace and more about power. Less about dialogue and more about enforcing compliance.One thing’s for sure though. It’s all so tiresome.
