US intelligence community publishes Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World

"This mismatch between governments' abilities and publics' expectations is likely to expand and lead to more political volatility, including growing polarisation and populism within political systems, waves of activism and protest movements, and, in the most extreme cases, violence, internal conflict, or even state collapse."

I think I see what they're getting at, because scarce resources does breed conflict. But looking through the lens of what has happened thus far, most of that activism and protest has been pretty reasonable, at least for the vast majority. So the way that was phrased suggests "Stop killing black people" is not politically acceptable, because "there are good people on both sides." That's also a pretty succinct summary of most protest/activism. We expect humanity, decency, and economic parity across the nation. Is that really a problem of government ability, or just because achieving those things will require stripping from those with the most? I think it's very much the latter, which the powerful dislike and influence the politicians accordingly.

The COVID relief distribution shows we have all the infrastructure and ability to make UBI happen, it's not a question of how, but a question of why not? Ditto for M4A and free college. The best arguement I've seen against those things is 'but how will we pay for it' which is really code for 'we don't want to tax rich people to pay for it.' That's not a very convincing one, and that attitude tells me "it's not that we can't, but that we don't want to."

Even for something as simple as increasing minimum wage, there's so much argueing against it even though it hasn't ever caused problems any time in the past.

I don't like the framing of the left/right wing terrorists, given how the USA has been quick to frame "disorganized communities of anti-fascists" as terrorists. Terrorists, especially since 2001, has been a catch-all term for 'I want this group disposed of quickly.' As such, going forward I expect any progressive protests that are amed the way the fascist protests were will be quickly dispatched.

Got me thinking.. if you want gun control, have a black protest armed in self defense. Bet you a nickle there's a law passed inside of a week.