At the end of the day "the people in power" have power because the masses allow them to. If enough people refuse to participate in the system then the system will fall apart - e.g. the state only has the capacity to process so many evictions. This pandemic has been the greatest catalyst for class consciousness that I've seen in my life, and I think it has the potential to reshape our society after it's over.
That being said, I have more hope for smaller, local circles, because then the partisan lines get blurry due to a common local identity.
‘A banker, a worker, and an immigrant are sitting at a table with 20 cookies. ‘The banker takes 19 cookies and warns the worker: “Watch out, the immigrant is going to take your cookie away.”’
If the ruling class plays it right the working class will go after each other instead of the ruling class. And so far they seem to do really well.
And yes, that is definitely what they'll do - every time something major happens in our society I've observed the mass media following the playbook from Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" almost exactly.
That being said, every "big event" is an opportunity for mass radicalization of the working class and these "big events" are happening more and more often. It's like the quote from the IRA: "We only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always".
