There are a lot of reasons that we lack power. Sometimes, our particular party is simply not in the majority. Sometimes we run smack dab into the fact that we simply do not control everything, like virus or fire. Sometimes, we just have not learned all the lessons we need to learn to properly use the power we have. But the point is some things are simply out of our control.

Republicans control the White House and the Senate. Republicans get to fill the SCOTUS vacancy created by Justice Ginsburg’s passing.

Ultimately you cannot control a virus. If we could covid-19 would be gone already.

Wildfires happen.

The question is what to do when confronted with a situation where we are simply not in control? I have been thinking about this a lot since Jim Geraghty wrote last week about how California’s mixed up regs prevent controlled burns so that when wildfires do happen, they get ugly. I can see the Bobcat fire out my back window. Last week we lived in a pall of smoke so thick visibility was measured in feet. This week the fire has moved and so have the winds so life is far more pleasant, even if the column of smoke looms ominously on the horizon. I am always stunned when these fires happen how little property damage there is. Look, don’t get me wrong, I feel for anybody that lost a house, but when over 100,000 acres have burned, it is stunning how few structures, and lives, have been lost. Of course the fire fighters prioritize protection of structures, but one must wonder if they, since they effectively cannot do control burns, let natural fires go wherever feasible to serve the same purpose?

That’s where things get interesting. They could never admit to that, of course, but one has to wonder. They seem so good at stopping the fire when they need to. What is interesting is it reduces all the climate change harangues and status press conferences and other public pronouncements to pure political theater.

Likewise, a SCOTUS opening happens and your party has no power to affect it. What do you do? You create a show for the press to try and make it look like you have more power than you do. In this case the political theater is not a distraction, it is a search for relevance.

A virus comes into our midst, one more deadly than average. There is little that can be done that will make much difference other than race to a vaccine. But the government is supposed to be in charge and so political theater ensues – part distraction and part creating the appearance of relevance where no possibility exists.

Our media saturated age demands political theater when there is little political action. In many cases when little political action is even possible.

But here is the problem. Trust in government is in deep decline. I cannot help but wonder if the sheer amount and volume of political theater we have in comparison to political action is a big reason for that decline. The line between spin, a convenient fiction and a lie is a very fine one. People do not like being lied to and they never trust a proven liar.

Maybe it is time our politicians learned the wisdom of simply being quiet.