I know it’s fun to think of a bad year, like 2020, as special, unique and finite. I just watched “Death to 2020” and it was pretty darn funny. It would really be great if all the things that made a year bad would just magically end at midnight on December 31. However, we are all adults and we know that the difference between one year and the next is an arbitrary point, and that events and trends don’t really care what year it is.
I hope you’re ready to focus back on what’s going on in the world.
The Half-assed Coup
First off, the half-assed coup continues. It looked like Trump had gone to Florida for good, but on New Year’s Eve he flew back to DC, and fascist politicos are at least pretending that they’re going to really try to derail congressional approval of the electoral college vote. I’ve seen commentary from the political press saying that the situation is “shocking”. It isn’t. We could just let the people vote and then whoever won the vote would be the next President. The whole reason why we have an electoral college, and the whole reason why the electoral college vote has to be approved by Congress is specifically so the votes of the people can be ignored if political elites feel they should be.
I do think that Trump will ultimately be dethroned, but people — liberals in particular — absolutely do not appreciate how entirely possible it is for Trump Republicans to end American democracy.
COVID-19
COVID-19 will still be with us for a while, and although the vaccine development process was truly amazing, it may not have been fast enough — thanks to anti-mask conservatives and upper-class frequent flyers. There are now at least 2 variants in the world — thankfully, the current vaccines appear to work against both. If the protein key on any new variant of COVID-19 does not match the original version, that will mean an additional vaccine will have to be produced and distributed. The estimate for when COVID-19 will be under control globally is already at around 2023.
US Inequality
Inequality in the US remains dramatic — it is the highest among the G7 nations. It is closer to the levels found in what Trump calls “shithole countries” than what is found in whatever the opposite of that is.
Related: 6 facts about economic inequality in the U.S.
None of the political class has yet to address a real solution to the economic distress happening in America — it was there before, but COVID made things a lot worse. They just keep sending out checks that will be paid for later by hiking up our taxes or cutting government services; they might even steal our Social Security to pay for it. A real solution would be for a national rent freeze to be accompanied by a national mortgage freeze, but for some reason, the banks are untouchable. The Biden tax plan is a nice idea (if it can make it into law) but it is still weaker than what is required. It seems pretty unlikely that they’d go after the real inequity problem — billionaire wealth. The upshot is that working class Americans are going to continue to struggle financially.
Climate
The climate-change-exacerbated disasters that we saw in 2020 are likely to be worse this year, and worse still the year after. A government controlled by the mega-rich donor class will not be capable of creating and enforcing laws that get us to negative emissions, which is what is required to save humanity.
Joe Biden
Joe Biden’s cognitive functioning is going to be problematic. At the very least, he’s going to be seen as a joke, much like Trump was. At the worst, he will indeed be a puppet for capital (much like how Trump often served as a puppet for fascists), which will only make things worse.
Fascists
America still has over 75 million fascists, many of whom are heavily armed. One of the interesting things that were brought to our attention over the last 4 years is that this includes most of our law enforcement officers. America’s cult of radical individualism has eaten away at our ethics to the point where most of us (yes, even Democratic voters) believe that any community good is secretly an evil plot by communists.
CONCLUSION
My conclusion is that 2021 could definitely be worse than 2020. Instead of having a “gee, I sure am glad that’s over LOL” kind of attitude about it, we need to commit to continuing to work hard. And I see you heading for the liquor cabinet, but we all need you coherent and awake for what’s coming next. We all need to pay attention and think.
To that end, let me suggest a couple of people to you.
The first is Heather Cox Richardson. Her “Letters from America” series of semi-daily updates is the best single summary of US news available, in my opinion. She is a Democrat, and so you have those familiar blind spots (like unwavering faith in our democratic institutions, despite their ongoing failures) and yet I haven’t seen anything better. You can find her on Facebook, or if you’ve been banned like me, you can subscribe to Letters from America in email form.
Second is Chris Hedges. If you’re familiar with him, you know his shtick is a bit tiring and you might have discovered (like I did) that he has quite a few stances you strongly disagree with. However, he also has amazing clarity in some areas that I have not seen anywhere else. For example: The Collective Suicide of the Liberal Class