When government fails to meet our universal needs

It isn’t often the case that K Street almost wholly shares the rest of the country’s concerns. But in facing the challenges and dilemmas created by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no distance between K Street and Main Street.

Everyone is touched by disease, disruption, displacement, even death. Weariness fights with resentment for predominance. Frustration and isolation join in a descending gyre. It’s no surprise that as COVID-19 has spread and persisted, all forms of antisocial behavior also have fanned out like a virus: domestic violence, street crime, road rage, shootings, killings.

Although the common understanding is that the country is deeply divided on almost every issue, the view from K Street is different. From here, through the prism of a national perspective, there appears to be a subsuming commonality across the country. We’re fed up. Frustrated. Tired. We’re not exactly sure at whom to be angry, so we’re mad at just about everybody.

Since we don’t deserve to be so “fed up” ourselves, it doesn’t really matter if those we’re mad at don’t deserve the blame! This rage, this frustration takes on odd forms: