At the beginning of 2020, I was expecting a recession this year and an interesting presidential election.  We technically got those things, but it sure played out a lot differently than I expected. We got more than was bargained for.

In March, we saw the establishment eliminate Bernie Sanders from contention of the presidency. The Democratic Party establishment gave the typical accusation that the Russians were helping Sanders, and Sanders weakly responded saying that there would be no Russian interference on his watch.  Sanders showed himself, once again, to be a tool of the establishment.

The other establishment candidates dropped out right before Super Tuesday and rallied behind Biden. They followed their orders dutifully.  Elizabeth Warren stayed in the race because too many of her supporters may have gone towards Sanders.

Sanders got played again.  This time, the Democratic Party put its hopes in Joe Biden, a now 78-year old lifetime politician who can barely string two coherent sentences together.  But the powers-that-be only needed a figure that would represent the anti Trumpers.  Nobody actually voted for Biden.  They voted against Trump.

The Democratic primaries got almost no attention after Super Tuesday.  In early March, the coronavirus hysteria began.  It is still amazing how fast life changed for everyone.  Even more surprising is that we have to wonder if some of it is permanent.  I live in open Florida where you still feel like you’re in a hospital when you go to the grocery store.

The Hysteria Begins

The coronavirus hysteria (not the coronavirus) is the biggest story of the year.  The biggest consequences now and down the road are the loss of liberty and the economic devastation.

There are tens of millions of people in poverty who have been pushed back even closer to the brink of starvation because of arbitrary government rules in response to the coronavirus hysteria.  This is especially the case in third-world countries.  But even in a relatively wealthy place like the United States, there are millions of newly unemployed people and hundreds of thousands of small businesses that have closed down.  With all of the new debt and monetary inflation piled up in response, the economic devastation will be felt for years to come.

We were told originally that there was a 3 to 4 percent mortality rate, or some close variation of that.  I knew it was a lie right away.  It was coming from the same lying media that lies about wars and lies about almost anything political of significance.  It was also easy to spot the lie because they were using bad statistics. They were simply counting the people who died divided by the number of people who tested positive.  But early on in China, the people testing positive were the people who were already really sick.

But the establishment had its handpicked experts of epidemiologists and scientists to say what they wanted them to say.  These were the only opinions that mattered according to the corporate media, and they wanted to make our lives as miserable as possible, especially given that Trump was still president.

Things have only gotten more insane since that time with nearly everyone walking around with a mask on.  I see toddlers with a mask on.  I see people driving alone with a mask on.  I see people walking outside with a mask on.  It’s pure stupidity or virtue signaling or both.

Protests and Riots

Then came the end of May and the death of George Floyd.  For a brief period of time, the coronavirus didn’t matter any more.  I thought that would be the end of the coronavirus hysteria, but I underestimated the stupidity and gullibility of people.

If you left your house for anything deemed “non-essential” from mid March to mid May, then you wanted to kill someone’s grandmother.  But when thousands of people were protesting and/or rioting in the streets, there was no longer a threat to grandma.  It was ok because it was for social justice.  It was for something really important.  In other words, according to the corporate media, it wasn’t important for a business owner losing their business, or a worker losing their job.

The rioting, burning of buildings, looting, and other destructions of property went on for many weeks or more in the big cities.  In many cases, the police were told to stand down.  The people trying to defend their property were often labeled as the bad guys.

After a while, the rioting started to look somewhat bad for the left.  So it stopped in enough time before the election while Biden and his establishment media tried to flip the script.  It was really the Trump people who wanted rioting and chaos.  The left wanted peace and harmony.  It’s hard to make this stuff up.

The Establishment Media

In the lead up to the election in November, the establishment media did everything it could to cover for Joe Biden and make Trump look as bad as possible.  It wasn’t anything new that the media was trashing Trump for anything it could find.  The amazing thing was that the media was just flat out ignoring major stories.

The biggest story was that of Hunter Biden and his infamous laptop.  It would be understandable if it just exposed Hunter Biden as a creep and nothing else.  Of course, the media wouldn’t ignore such a story about one of Donald Trump’s children, but at least it would be somewhat understandable.  But the information basically showed that Joe Biden knew everything that was going on and was receiving kickbacks from foreign countries for doing favors while vice president.  Now that the election is over, it’s no surprise that Hunter Biden was already under investigation and the media will make mention of some of his troubles.

The biggest story here though is not Hunter Biden or even Joe Biden.  The biggest story is the establishment media’s total cover up of anything that could possibly hurt Biden’s chances of winning.

Election Chaos

The election itself was no surprise.  The establishment took control over the swing states to the degree it was possible.  Many rules were changed in the name of coronavirus safety (that seems to be a theme now). Mail-in ballots allowed for more voting and more fraud.

On the night of the election, the swing states just stopped counting their votes.  Then, in the early morning, the vote “counting” resumed.  This was particularly the case in the major cities in swing states (Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Atlanta).  When people woke up Wednesday morning, it all of a sudden looked like Joe Biden would win. He pulled off a miracle.

Trump is still not conceding and is looking at any possible avenue to overturn the media’s anointment of Biden as president-elect.  The drama will continue into 2021, as will the lockdowns and the mask hysteria.

The country is even more divided at the end of 2020 as it was at the beginning of the year. It is more divided politically, and there is also a divide with the assessment of the coronavirus and the lockdowns.

Lockdowns Have Consequences

Again, I believe the biggest story is the loss of liberty and the economic consequences that are still to follow.

Governors and mayors have been given the power to shut down businesses on a whim.  They can pretty much make anything up that they want to now.  They can do it all in the name of public safety.

It could be the continuation of COVID-19.  It could be a mutated form of it.  It could be a new virus.  It could be climate change that is going to put us all under water in 5 years according to the “experts”.  You better follow the orders of your rulers if you want to be safe.

Then we have the fiscal disaster.  State and local governments are in trouble with their budgets, even more so than they were a year ago.  They are being bailed out to a certain degree by the federal government, but there are limits here.

The federal government is running deficits at an unprecedented pace.  The Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet by over $3 trillion this year, and we are nowhere near done.  The stock market has resumed its massive bubble after a brief down period in March and April.

There is going to be a massive depression or massive price inflation, or maybe both.  There are going to be massive defaults. The federal government’s defaults will mostly come in the form of depreciating money.  Sure, you’ll get your Social Security checks and your pension, but it won’t be worth much.

Some Optimism

From a libertarian standpoint, there is a little bit of good news out of all this.  Some people don’t buy all of the hype, or they at least don’t accept the lockdowns.  There are many people who should be more sympathetic to a libertarian message than before.  This should be especially true for small business owners.

Homeschooling has only increased in popularity, and the schools are seen more as daycare centers than learning centers.  While I was hoping for even more parents abandoning the government schools, at least we are headed in the right direction.

The same goes for college, where many people are realizing that they are paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for a mediocre education.  In many cases, it is more propaganda and brainwashing than it is education.

Even in the corporate world, many companies have realized that their productive employees can work just fine remotely.  Many will keep it this way.  They will save money not having to lease as much expensive office space.

I think the world needs to hear a principled libertarian message.  It is ripe for it.  This doesn’t mean defending restaurants by saying that outdoor dining doesn’t really spread the virus.  It means defending small businesses by defending the concept of private property rights and freedom of association.

The world needs to hear the message of liberty.  The rulers rely on the consent of the people.  If the general population no longer accepts the fear and hysteria, or at least accepts that the government can’t do anything good about it, then the support for the rulers will collapse.

The lockdowns and other restrictions are completely unnecessary and anti liberty.  They can only exist because enough people allow them to exist.  This is the message that needs to be told in 2021 and beyond.