Global events this year have abruptly changed life as we know it, and it likely won’t ever be the same as it was just six months ago. The coronavirus pandemic has shut down cities, banned cross-border travel, cancelled major events, ruptured international economies, and forced our means of connection to further embrace the digital age. Americans are slowly creeping back to a familiar pace under gently lifted lockdowns, which also threatening to grow tighter once again as the virus spreads.
Meanwhile, mid-pandemic riots in the aftermath of Georgy Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody have catalyzed a wide reckoning on race, bringing the cultural civil war simmering for years under the surface into full-bloom as modern progressives wage a 21st century woke revolution in the name of “Black Lives Matter.” Activists are purging relics of the past, silencing dissent, and pursuing a fundamental transformation of modern civilization under a new world order. And things are changing.
The combination of historic civil unrest in the midst of a public health crisis centering on a once-in-a-generation pathogen, which has already killed more than 140,000 Americans, has kicked off the decade with an apocalyptical year that may forever see the end of some traditions, while also marking the beginning of new ones whether they come for better or for worse. Here are a few relics that seem unable to ever make a comeback:
The End Of The Movie Theater
When state and local officials began locking down their communities over coronavirus to slow the spread, movie theaters were the first to go, and many Americans pivoted to streaming services enjoying the same entertainment from the comfort of their own home. Television streaming increased by 85 percent in March, and Netflix pulled in 16 million new subscribers amid the lockdowns by the end of April. Movies that were slated to appear in theaters such as “King of Staten Island,” were released online.
Movie theater chains meanwhile, are struggling. One survey in May shows Americans are getting used to at-home streaming. Seventy percent, according to a survey published in Variety said they would rather just watch movies from their living room. Last month, AMC Theatres said it had “substantial doubt” it would remain in business after its revenues fell by nearly $950 million as the movie industry adapts to reach consumers in the modern changing environment.
Objective Journalism
Activist reporters had already masqueraded around Washington for quite some pretending to serve as righteously objective arbiters of truth in the era of fake news. The explosion of the nation’s culture wars however, paired with the epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has infected the legacy press corps, has blown back the cover of their unrelenting bias in plain sight where self-proclaiming “objective journalists” have taken to characterizing a patriotic speech celebrating America as “dark and divisive.”
Just in the last three months, the American “news” media has, lied about progressive efforts to “defund police” as communities literally defund police, covered up for the left-wing riots that terrorized cities and burned down black business, exposed its hypocrisy on coronavirus by condemning those not following social distancing while celebrating mass protests, colluded with foreign entities to de-platform ideological competitors, purged newsroom staff not conforming to the cultural trend, charged loving America as glorifying white supremacy, perpetuated fake history in American classrooms, declared the national bird as a relic of Nazi Germany, and peddled new conspiracy theories alleging Trump is a Russian agent even after the grand collapse of the more than two years Mueller probe that found not one person on the 2016 Trump campaign, let alone Trump himself, were acting to subvert American interests on orders from the Kremlin.
Objective journalism had been on its way out for a long time. This year might be the final year that legacy media gets away with the label as “independent.”
Good Comedy
Good comedy too, had been seeing an exit as woke mobs operating an exhaustive cancel culture had already scared comedians away from performing at universities over fear of retribution following even the most mildly offensive joke, which, through the lens of progressive wokesters running college campuses can be now virtually anything.
Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock for example, stopped touring universities years ago, and comedians on television have largely conformed their jokes into the mold of political activism that are no longer even funny.
Federalist Cultural Editor Emily Jashinsky pondered last year, “Which Jokes From The Office Are Problematic?” One could hardly watch a ten-year-old episode of the NBC program and imagine making it to air in today’s hostile climate. A true tragedy includes the jokes that never will be told anymore, not to a public audience at least, because comedians no longer make them.
The Handshake
Americans getting used to behaviors now seen as temporary may become permanent as individuals consciously or unconsciously adopt distancing measures such as the “elbow bump” to reduce transmission of other communicable diseases such as the seasonal flu, which kills 12,000 to 61,000 people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Researchers are chasing towards a coronavirus vaccine at light-speed with hopeful news this week that a vaccine from the biotech firm Moderna will be entering large phase three testing later this month. Yet, society may still have to grapple with the still very possibility there might not be a vaccine for years to come, if ever. Americans may end up learning to adapt to a new “corona season” dealing with resurgent spikes in cases.
The handshake may very well soon become a form of physical introduction from a recent past.
Dumb Red Tape Laws
A bright spot to the 2020 erasure of societal norms include the elimination of dumb laws waived in the face of the pandemic that policymakers ought to realize were never needed in the first place.
As states worldwide reconsider a wide array of government policies and reevaluate their necessity and scramble to combat the outbreak, the answer had been consistently no.
Among those laws include bans on alcohol delivery that were temporarily repealed to encourage people to stay home and support local restaurants. A pointless limit on the amount of hand sanitizer permitted on airplanes has temporarily been increased to 12 ounces.
Another set of laws ripe for repeal includes prohibitions on licensed medical professionals to work across state lines and limited allowances on hospitals acquiring medical equipment known as “Certificates of Need.”
