Is “The Great Reset” Real and Should I Be Concerned?

In this crazy COVID year, I have been hearing about “The Great Reset” that world leaders are planning. Some of my friends seem super concerned about it. What do you guys think? Is it real and if so, what is it exactly?

It is real. And you should be concerned. But maybe not for all the reasons you’ve been told.

Understanding what this thing called “The Great Reset” actually is and is not is critical. It is indeed an effort by some very powerful elites to use this very crazy and trying year of COVID-19 to advance a specific set of ill-advised policy initiatives. But it is not the conspiracy theory some have made it out to be. It is not happening behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms. It is taking place quite openly.

The Great Reset is the brainchild of Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, the organization that busies itself hosting the swanky Davos Agenda soiree in Switzerland each year. Schwab is happy to tell you all about it in his book: COVID-19: The Great Reset. He also wrote about it in Time magazine just last month. The World Economic Forum has an entire website explaining it. TIME magazine even published a massive forum on it, showing you more angles than you can read about in an afternoon. The effort even has a hip, feel-good site targeting the Under-30 crowd. The people behind The Great Reset very much want you to know about it because they are very proud of what they have in store for all of us.

So what is “The Great Reset”?

It is not a Marxist or Communist plot. It is wholly capitalist and corporatist; a bunch of the world’s richest elites trying to fix things because they believe they know what’s best. And most of their ideas are derived from tired leftist formulas that should never see the light of day. Even The Intercepts’ Naomi Klein, who has seldom met a liberal idea she didn’t love, has significant concerns over the intentions of those behind The Great Reset. She writes,

“All kinds of dangerous ideas are lurking under its wide brim, from a reckless push toward more automation in the midst of a joblessness crisis, to the steady move to normalize mass surveillance and biometric tracking tools, to the very real (though not new) problem of Bill Gates’s singular power over global health policy.”

There are of course additional concerns to conservatives as well, but nothing really new here. It’s just a shiny new effort. The Great Reset is the corporate world’s version of “We’re from the government and we’re here to help you.” In his Time essay explaining their agenda, Schwab asks, “Will governments, businesses and other influential stakeholders truly change their ways for the better after this, or will we go back to business as usual?” Andrew Stuttaford at National Review effectively sums up the energy behind what Schwab and his elites have in mind this way, “COVID-19 is a bad disease that has been used to breathe new life into bad ideas.” And this is precisely what The Great Reset is, global business leaders coming together “to dialogue” and plan how we should all start doing what they think is best in order to make the world a better place. Not letting a crisis go to waste and all that. They think we should all be thankful for their gracious help. After all, even Prince Charles of Wales is involved. No thank you.

Is It Worse Than It Sounds?

Ben Shapiro addressed this recently explaining The Great Reset “is not a myth” and it is problematic. But, he warns, nor is it “some sort of conspiratorial, backroom deal” to change everything. Shapiro holds “The Great Reset is just an attempt by members of the political left to grab control of things they do not own and leverage those things on behalf of their own interests. That’s all it is.” But that is not nothing either.

Frankly, he says he doesn’t believe the politicians involved in this are smart enough to stage the world-controlling coupe some warn the Reset is. He explains that in reality “All of politics is VEEP; it is never House of Cards.” Of course, he’s referencing two popular political shows: HBO’s Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Netflix’s House of Cards featuring Kevin Spacey. They both show a very different side of political machinations. The former features the liberal but sadly buffoonish Vice President who constantly missteps in her climb for more power. The latter is a brutally Machiavellian Congressman and his ruthless wife’s evil plan to amass total control. Shapiro is saying the first is often closer to reality. The Great Resetters “are simply using the COVID crisis to do the thing they wanted to do all along.”

But should this concern us? Shapiro believes it should, very much so, explaining, “we should all be afraid of it because anyone who declares they know what is best for the globe and then tries to grab the power to effectuate it, is someone who should scare the living day lights out of you.”

Of course the ladies of The Squad are also tagging onto this opportunistic power grab as it largely aligns with their well-known agenda.  The Great Reset is also closely related to the Build Back Better mantra of Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Not wanting to allow a good crisis to go to waste, they are simply using this smart sounding, slick branding to dress up their tired old policies as something wonderfully innovative, compassionate, and wholly good. They are none of these.

 Photo from Taljat David / Shutterstock.com