One of few things undebated about 2020 was that it was a year full of political unrest. Either side of any debate held that year, whether presidential, COVID-19, wildfires, etc., will attest to that.
Malcom X would argue the reason is the world is more literate than ever before. Literacy is loosely defined as the ability to read and write. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literate#h1 So, with the United States reaching a 99% literacy rate as opposed 80% in 1870, it has more to say and hear than ever before. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp
Simply said, there is a greater number of people whose different ideas are finally being shared. Additionally, by the 2016 election extremely well-read internet ecologies such as Twitter and social media have more or less been accepted as an official news source or valid manner of spreading information.
But any person can publish themselves on Twitter. So, anyone with an idea worth listening to can muster up the same audience and credibility as news reporters.
In other words, mainstream narratives about elections, political issues, ideals, and how to think etc., no longer are provided by the news outlets alone. The common man now has as much potential political sway as Alexander Hamilton. The only problem is millions of people are attempting to do this at once.
So, the end result is responses to issues now seem cluttered. Movements seem contradictory within themselves. In general, politics has lost its unity without the authority of the news to lead either side.
Perhaps this is a benefit. Movements like BLM and others that have been massively ignored for decades finally have gained attention basically thanks to social media and increased literacy of those writing and reading about it. Malcom X argued that the inability to write and read is what kept him in chains. https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/malcom-x.pdf
Regardless of whether this rapid transfer of ideas, politics and movements is positive or negative, the result is civil unrest.
Without the internet and the increase in reading and writing ability in the United States a majority of current political issues would likely have been ignored.
The end result is the ecology of political writing has changed entirely. No longer is political writing reserved for the news companies or the Ben Franklins of the world. But each person has the ability to capture attention like those giants of the past did. This means more ideas, more movements more politics in general.
