Saw this thread, and it really hit a chord with me, as these similar fears tend to constantly weigh on me (for various reasons- being trans, ethnic Chinese, commie, etc).
I think we all (leftists, but also just most minorities) know, shit is bad and will get worse, it's just a question of how bad it will get. People mention it offhand without usually going further into the details, and similarly in other spaces - non-leftist ones as well, for instance Asian diasporic and LGBT spaces in my experience, these fears come up, but ultimately we keep the bulk of our concerns to ourselves. What are our expectations here, for the west? Not just for the US, but the Anglosphere and Europe?
Pretty much. I hesitate to say this, but for instance if, when, and as (since it is ongoing ATM) anti-Asian and anti-Muslim hate ramps up, opportunists in the black and Latino communities will jump in on it (of all social strata- open season is open season- that said if the tables were turned this would also happen, let's all be honest here this is how it is). Just as we all are atomized/hyperindividualized, all our communities are as well; the west has poisoned the well as best as they could in regards to solidarity and divide-and-conquer politics and the narratives within our communities are heavily controlled.
There's a consciousness making a resurgence- one that never quite went away, but which is particularly active now mainly in the face of livestreamed industrial genocide. But if the west cannot manage more than peaceful protests and some war sabotage attempts (incredibly important as they are- and let's be honest anything else, while based, would be cracked down on with the full brutality of the state- hell things are already brutal against dissent as is) then I don't think it will be enough. I hope I'm wrong and am not advocating for defeatism, but my outlook for the west is just very bleak and by the time the necessity for revolutionary change has been accepted at large I suspect it will have been too late- as I see it the way things are going it may very well be so dire for the west that BRICS and the rest of humanity will be the ones to either force a change for the better from the west, or otherwise be forced to put down the western regimes like a rabid dog before running intense de-Nazification/de-mental-colonization.
Like you I'm not a doomer. And I'm actually very profoundly optimistic for the world (provided the US doesn't start nuclear war), especially seeing current developments. But I think that (while we can't afford to accept it) realistically the imperial order, particularly in the cores, will go down thrashing in as wretched a manner as possible and has a lot of fight, a lot of hate in it yet- thankfully the world is moving past the west in all aspects, such that all the west has left is terror...
why?
I've talked about it elsewhere before, but don't think I can say I have the full energy at the moment (I'll try to reply again later, maybe). But as to the gist of it:
If you look at the development as well as energy across the global south and Russia, amazing things are happening. The BRICS is creating the foundations for the end of US dollar dominance and western finance imperialism- not to say it will happen overnight. The BRICS are providing alternative, infinitely better choices, equality and democracy of nations, etc. for humanity. By-and-large outside the west, when you look at it- the world may be immensely flawed as all things are; most nations may not be AES but even highly flawed states like Russia, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. you name it- are choosing peace and prosperity and respect over constant destabilization and divide-and-conquer warmongering, resource theft and destruction, and western diktat and chauvinism. The system which specifically targets AES, anti-imperialist states, states pursuing their own sovereignty and interests ie. actual democracy, etc. and destroys them- imperialism- is crumbling.
Look outside the west, and while there is horror and fear at the wickedness and destructiveness of the empire, the spirit of humanity is rising up. The entire global south is developing, bit by bit, but at this point in a way that is unlike any other time in history (sadly the Soviets during the cold war did not have such means whatsoever, though they sought to assist nations all the same). It's all over for the world system of imperialism if you ask me and I can go into much more detail on it when I have the energy but there are also many good sources on it (I would recommend looking more at Lemmygrad for this sort of thing, or watching proper Marxist economists and geopolitical/etc analysts like Geopolitical Economy Report, Professors Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson, the Tricontinental, etc).
In the west it's all doom and gloom so long as the mechanism of empire remains (not to say that the empire cannot be overthrown from within); but look at the south and I have infinite optimism (which will in time come to the west, if we cannot sort our business out ourselves). Though whether the west will first try to take down all of humanity with it if they cannot maintain hegemony and worldwide exploitation is another matter and a very real concern.