Whether we loved him or hated him, we couldn’t look away. In the recovery rooms of political discourse, we’re finally admitting the truth: The 43rd President wasn’t just a leader; he was a fix. He was the 24-hour news cycle’s cocaine, the comedian’s free base, and the pundit’s opioid all rolled into a pair of ill-fitting cowboy boots.
Until we learn to tolerate the boredom of normal politics, we will never truly be sober. We will simply be waiting for the next cowboy to come riding over the hill, ready to give us another fix.
That clarity was the first hit. It felt good. It felt safe. But as any addict knows, the first hit is always free. As the Iraq War ground on and Katrina flooded New Orleans, the nature of the addiction mutated. We no longer needed the leader; we needed the character .
The Bush era taught us that we can survive a terrible addiction. But it also taught us that we will claw our way back to the dealer the moment things get quiet.
We expected the Obama era to be the methadone clinic—calm, measured, intellectual. But our dopamine receptors were fried. We had spent eight years addicted to the chaos of Bush, and normal governance felt like the flu.
When everything is a crisis, nothing is a crisis. We forgot how to live at a baseline level of political sobriety. Then came November 4, 2008. The drug was gone. The "W." era ended. And the nation went into immediate withdrawal.
Whether we loved him or hated him, we couldn’t look away. In the recovery rooms of political discourse, we’re finally admitting the truth: The 43rd President wasn’t just a leader; he was a fix. He was the 24-hour news cycle’s cocaine, the comedian’s free base, and the pundit’s opioid all rolled into a pair of ill-fitting cowboy boots.
Until we learn to tolerate the boredom of normal politics, we will never truly be sober. We will simply be waiting for the next cowboy to come riding over the hill, ready to give us another fix.
That clarity was the first hit. It felt good. It felt safe. But as any addict knows, the first hit is always free. As the Iraq War ground on and Katrina flooded New Orleans, the nature of the addiction mutated. We no longer needed the leader; we needed the character .
The Bush era taught us that we can survive a terrible addiction. But it also taught us that we will claw our way back to the dealer the moment things get quiet.
We expected the Obama era to be the methadone clinic—calm, measured, intellectual. But our dopamine receptors were fried. We had spent eight years addicted to the chaos of Bush, and normal governance felt like the flu.
When everything is a crisis, nothing is a crisis. We forgot how to live at a baseline level of political sobriety. Then came November 4, 2008. The drug was gone. The "W." era ended. And the nation went into immediate withdrawal.
