"Flash Point"

Ol' Remus remunerates about why "Joe Everyman" isn't fed up and rioting on the street.  His conclusion is that time is not yet. But, he suspects, the flash point will arise in another "class" of people:

The likeliest candidate is the career dependency, the bottom strata at least, which Newspeak describes as an embattled yet marvelously vibrant community of the underserved, disenfranchised and marginalized. ... 

... So deep is their belief in entitlements as a "human right" the payoffs and periodic bonuses they get are believed with certainty to be criminally less than deserved. ... 

Should an economic convulsion threaten their elaborate confections, or worse, should regular payoffs be interrupted much beyond their planning horizon, there would be a detonation of such magnitude a platoon of physicists would be needed to measure it. There's your uprising. The fracas would be joined soon enough, perforce, and such tolerance as now exists would be found smoldering among the collateral damage. People deal with effects, not causes—real, imaginary or completely insane. 

... the meddlers have nursed to maturity a cadre of the truly feral, seething with hate, perpetually primed for homicidal aggression without regard for consequences. The model seems to be the Taliban but without the subtlety. 

Should there be a catastrophe, comparable conflicts suggest a macabre rule: however principled one side is compared to the other at the outset, in the end both will fall to a level of brutality indistinguishable from the other. The corollary is obvious. Who prevails rests largely on who wins the race to the bottom. The more principled but more capable may, in part, defer aggressive action for this reason, but at an increased risk of miscalculation. 

We've come to a place where we have to think about the unthinkable. It didn't have to be this way. But it is. We're told not to notice, often sternly. But we do. We're told noticing is a breech of good will and good citizenship. It isn't. It's all things not considered. An honest airing is needed. Their handlers know the hard truths. Those who need to hear it aren't hearing it. Perhaps no one's hearing it. And perhaps it's too late in the day to matter.

 Read the whole thing.

Although all but forgotten, the London riots in 2011 showed that neighborhood action can be successful in driving off marauders. So, yes, when push comes to shove, "Joe Everyman" can react decisively.

I don't necessarily agree that victory goes to the winner of the race to the bottom. A certain amount of brutality is required of course. Destroying the will of a people to fight is not a game of croquet. However, looking at WWII as an example, the United States defeated Japan without descending to the level of brutality displayed by the Japanese or, for that matter, the Germans and Soviets on the Eastern Front.

That said, Ol' Remus is probably correct in that there will be a race to the bottom. There is a certain paradox to relying on terror which is there comes a tipping point where, rather than inducing fear, terror feeds the victim's anger and outrage and a desire for vengeance.