I don't know. That sounds all well and good but I don't think it's so cut and dry as "people love to be controlled." There's how people choose to comply to maintain group solidarity, whether they choose to make a show of complying when at a local personal level they aren't, the balance between feeding our families vs sacrificing to take a stand, etc, etc. Yes, I agree, covid was not a good sign, but it's not the end of history or the end of the story.
Just a small dose of realistic positivity for you today, fats, my man. Now, you may return to your regularly scheduled doomposting.
I was thinking more of 2 specific developments, which are converging, imho...
1. The now widespread political idea that the statesman's only moral imperative is not noblesse oblige but solely and exclusively the continued existence of the state at all costs.
2. A truly global class of people who flexed their muscle as, for lack of a better term, an emerging class consciousness during covid.
As those converge, you get a psychopathic global class of people who are aware they are distinct from the rest of us, have zero morality other than preservation, and control the infrastructure to do whatever they want wherever they want. It probably will be grotesques beyond what the history books hold.