Crisis Mode

I am, of course, not the first person to make this observation. I recall reading a George Will column in which he made a similar point about climate change. But given the outcome of the recent election, the thought came back to me. During the Obama Administration, the stand taken by a sizable segment of Republicans, voters and elected officials alike was to treat the Obama presidency as a crisis, and set about to "mitigate the damage." But it occurs to me that if those same people has spent some or all of that energy during the Bush Administration making sure that President Bush's policies were things that would benefit all Americans, regardless of party affiliation, there might have been a McCain Administration, instead. By the same token, many people have taken to nearly fetishizing their "resistance" to not only President Trump, but the understandings of the United States and the world that they feel that he represents. Again, had that effort been mustered during the time that Barack Obama was president to ensure that people in Red states did not feel ignored and left behind, it likely would have been Hillary Clinton at the podium today.

And perhaps this is why so many political outlooks are so apocalyptic. Motivating people to keep up the effort to keep things going in sunny weather is difficult. Convince them that they're sinking in a storm, and their energy is at your beck and call.