Americans are being forced to confront our utter lack of political power - our complete inability to get the government to do anything - in a way that we haven't in decades.

Closest thing in my lifetime was the war against Iraq and the realization that we couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. Even then a lot of Americans remained apathetic, and even more lost interest in follow-through with antiwar efforts once we put Democrats in power in 06 and 08.

Maybe it'll be different this time since it's a pandemic hitting us instead of us attacking someone else. But I still have the sinking feeling that a lot of the people yelling at Trump about his response so far are going to tune back out if a Democrat takes the White House.

It's shocking to think of, but by January we'll have lived with high unemployment and austerity for months. Perhaps there'll be movement on some health care issues like expanding capacity and reforming disaster relief programs, but...

...the same well-off Democratic base that's Zooming into office meetings, complaining about missed happy hours, and yaas kweening Pelosi right now will be fine with ignoring the poverty and unemployment around them under Biden as long as someone's still serving mimosas at brunch.