There is so much simmering resentment and anger, much of it justified, and 2021 could be quite the year of conflict as authoritarians and protesters clash. I hope we can manage a win for liberty instead of squabbling over who fills the "power vacuum."
Powder keg waiting for a spark is what it feels like. Last year's protests and the police responses to them definitely seemed to do a good job of radicalizing the white people around these parts. We've barely begun to feel the fallout and consequences from this pandemic and from climate change, I'll consider us lucky if it's not a decade of conflict.
What do you think a win for liberty would look like? My notion of liberty has a distinct 'No Gods, No Masters' flavor to it, I don't think I'd count any filling of a 'power vacuum' as a win.
My hope is that people will realize that none of the good things in society, and a lot of the bad stuff, stems from government, and we need to ditch coercion altogether to explore a truly cooperative society.
My fear is that the major parties will rebrand with new faces and new rhetoric, insist that obidence is freedom, and proclaim that their monopoly schemes are "for the greater good" so people get suckered yet again. The right will promise "law and order" as a path to peace, and the price in money and freedom is worth the result. The left will claim their political plunder is really charitable concern for the downtrodden, and there will be another round of reform pageantry while nothing fundamental really changes.
We as a society basically use government as a salve to absolve our conscience for not worrying about our neighbors and fellow human beings. Government without the guns and coercion is just a badly organized and mismanaged mutual aid network...
One of the most heartening things about the protests last year was seeing all the organizing in action and the massive growth of both mutual aid networks and the awareness of them. I seriously doubt most people 'will realize' much of that unless and until they are directly confronted with direct and irrefutable evidence...and then it's still hit or miss. I think Axl Rose was channeling their mindset when he sang "I've worked too hard for my illusions just to throw them all away."
I mean, isn't that standard operating procedure for political parties? New boss, same as the old boss... It has been my experience that the ones doing the actual work are rarely the ones doing the talking and vice versa. They'll try that regardless of what we do I suspect, we just have to organize and act accordingly.
I think all the government social engineering and control schemes were sold over the past 120 years on the laziness of the average Joe. "Well, I know we oughtta take care of these issues, but Uncle Sam says he'll do it for us, and democracy is supposed to be good, so how could giving government more power go wrong?"
Laziness or ignorance, but yeah, it definitely seems that way.