It will get worse before it gets better. But yeah, while things are still "good" (welfare, food, entertainment, etc.), people won't get off their arses, and will be fat. As for an agenda to protect, well you have one staring you straight in the face: taxation. Get people to rally around the second amendment with a focus on not paying any taxation of any kind, the government can ignore "free-speech", but it will not ignore the cattle not giving them half their shit. They'll go after your guns if you go down the path of refusing to pay taxes, and it will accelerate things immensely. If the government allows one person to get away with it and not make an example of them, every tax paying citizen in the state will refuse. What they can do is go through the path of deputising people, but also include a huge tax reduction along with it, and make sure everyone knows. Grant a tax break to all the politicians and law enforcement, while increasing it for everyone else. You'd have no trouble passing that in the state government, and they'd be too stupid and greedy to understand that you're just pouring more fuel on the fire.