I mean, the rate at which people are dying and becoming disabled due to covid can't be sustainable, can it? This country was running on fumes to begin with. Surely a country with an infamously terrible healthcare system, an economy that runs everything with as little margin for error as possible, and a government that has lost its ability to respond to any major disaster that can't be shot at cannot withstand this kind of catastrophe? What do you think things are going to look like five years from now?

  • Bluegrass_Buddhist [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    The cities I'm most hopeful for specifically are Minneapolis and Chicago. Both have strong working class movements that the ruling liberal machines are already straining to control. I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility to eventually see Red Vienna-style takeovers in either of them.

    Edit: Maybe New York as well? But I honestly don't know much about New York's socialist movement except that it seems to have an outsized number of podcasters and stand up comedians.

    • northshores1620 [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      In the fall of Rome, the financially viable states left the non-financially viable states to rot. We will likely see the east and west coasts leave the rest of the country behind.

        • PlantsRstillCool [des/pair]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Yep. If there were barbarian hordes from Canada willing to raid down into the Midwest we would have already seen the coasts just completely abandon like half of the Midwest

      • Bluegrass_Buddhist [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I wouldn't doubt it, which is why the Great Lakes area probably has the best chance out of the whole interior of the country.

      • Des [she/her, they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        don't live there myself but always thought it lacked any natural barriers to just being overwhelmed by rouge military or fascist militias approaching from every direction. defensible river crossings maybe?

        • Bluegrass_Buddhist [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Chicago itself can be pretty easily blockaded - we saw a dark version of that in 2020 when the national guard and local cops were able to cut off massive areas of the city just by parking garbage trucks at certain highway exits and cancelling certain trains.

          Better yet, Chicago's control of the country's largest train hub means it could potentially force concessions from outlying areas that depend on it for the transportation of goods. Though that would mean the city having to seize direct control of the rail lines and yards from the clusterfuck of companies that currently own them.