The Road to Hell

Excerpt; read the whole thing.

 The year 2020 wasn’t the apex of the crisis. It is the beginning of it. Layering COVID and the American mayors’, governors’, and scientists’ abject hypocrisy onto this toxic environment further illustrates Donald Trump’s point. The questionably fraudulent election is icing on the cake. The voters see and understand who benefits with the return to norms. Hint: It’s not them.

If people conclude that even voting in overwhelming numbers doesn’t matter, problems will be solved another way.

Shutting down the economy for a year, destroying small businesses, and closing schools (over one-third of small businesses in New York and New Jersey are permanently shuttered) while simultaneously wiping out the service industry and making those workers jobless means that the government and bureaucracy is undermined even as people need more support. There have been street protests, ostensibly about racism and police brutality, but as much about pent-up frustration from being penned like animals.

Big corporations thrive during the COVID economy, in contrast to their struggling small business brethren. Government workers have not missed one paycheck. Certainly, no elected official has missed a paycheck — except Donald Trump, who doesn’t take one and has seen his business shrink since taking office.

Meanwhile, there’s a looming mortgage crisis, again. Over six million people missed their October mortgage payment. Over a third of renters aren’t paying rent — but their landlords must still pay their bills.

Then there are the educational disparities being forced by big-city teachers’ unions, who serve the most at-risk children. The teachers are refusing to go back to school to teach, and these children are left behind. Kids in the suburbs are being taught in-person, though. These disadvantages will be felt for a generation.

Europe is erupting in protests. The American media, provincial and Trump-focused as usual, ignores it. How long until mass protests happen here? Or will the managerial class be content to have a large swath of America out of work and dependent upon the government?

What if we look back at 2020 as a good year?