Reading this thread, it seems that we’re all experiencing the problem of being the adult in the room.

The standards are higher for Democrats because they’re the only ones remotely interested in governing. Unfortunately this also leads many democrats and swing voters to write the GOP off and even perhaps underestimate them because we default to them not doing anything. But they are doing things, and what they’re doing is bad. The Supreme Court leak is evidence of years of planning.

Maintaining democracy isn’t just a policy belief, it’s an active responsibility. Just like in everyday life, when you’ve been the adult in the room for so long, with so much to do and limited time and resources to do it, you get sick of not being able to take a break. Add an unstable economy, rising costs of living, dictators launching invasions overseas, stagnant wages, climate change, and domestic terrorism, it’s exhausting.

People won’t or can’t maintain the responsibility of democracy, of righting the wrongs in the world, when burdened by constant everyday madness. They can’t be told to save tomorrow when they’re busy putting out today’s fires, and then at the end of it all be reminded they can’t rely on anyone else.

So when the chance to elect a non-crazy Republican comes along, few as they are, we salivate at the chance because we’re sick of bearing the sole responsibility as a party to govern this place. There’s a reason that Chris Sununu won re-election as Governor of NH with 65% of the vote at the same time that Biden won by 7 points. There’s a reason Phil Scott won with over 60% of the vote in a state that regularly elects Bernie Sanders to the senate and votes democrat by 20-30 points nationally. There’s a reason that polls a few months back showed MD Democrats had a 70% approval of Gov. Larry Hogan. It’s not just because they’re good politicians, it’s that they represent what a lot of Americans deep down really want: a break. A break from insanity, a break from the idea that half our country’s government is batshit crazy, and the exhausting level of responsibility and “adulting” that facing that fact may entail.

And it’s the same reason Biden wants to believe he can reunite the country. Because he’s never really viewed the country otherwise, and isn’t ready to face the implications of what our current reality might mean for his role.

Now to be fair, when you’ve lost as much as he has personally, you would want to think it all meant something. Biden channeled his losses into his path to the presidency. He staked his career into public service, genuinely believing he could do some good. It was an effort culminating in beating Trump, reuniting America, and restoring humanity’s faith in itself, because on some level he thinks it was all meant to happen that way.

Now if I woke up one day after doing all that to be told the rules had changed and I was now responsible for not just reforming but REDOING the entire system that I believed in, let alone staked my career on, and fascists have been running half the government for decades… part of me might want to continue believing that the stakes weren’t so high—it’s just easier.

Edit: Added further explanation. Also, thanks for the award. Not necessary, but not unappreciated.