At times, American politics are little more than the inevitable hissy fits of little boys and little girls who bossed their friends around during recess.
When these “alpha because I said so” types grow into their political roles, they likely realize that they’ve reached the top. They’ve hit the apex of their personal development, as well as their professional development, and, more importantly, they realize that those around them have too. That means that no one’s going to really pull rank on one another anymore, and this is just going to devolve into a match of either wit or volume.
This childish bullheadedness has manifested itself again today in American politics, this time with a group of state governors organizing a clique to annoy President Trump.
States on the country’s East and West coasts are forming their own regional pacts to work together on how to reopen from the stay-at-home orders each has issued to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The first such group to be announced came Monday on the East Coast. Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said his state, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island and Massachusetts each plan to name a public health and economic official to a regional working group. The chief of staff of the governor of each state also will be a part of the group, which will begin work immediately to design a reopening plan.
Later on Monday, the West Coast states of California, Washington and Oregon also announced they are joining forces in a plan to begin incremental release of stay-at-home orders. Governors of the three states will collaborate on their approach to getting back to business in “in a safe, strategic, responsible way,” as announced by California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Here’s where things got testy, however:
The collaborative approach by governors on both coasts underscored the massive and complex calculations that the nation is facing as it looks at steps to reopen the economy at both the federal and state levels. Though the President has asserted that he has the authority to determine when the economy will reopen, governors and mayors around the country have moved swiftly in recent days to make it clear that they control the levers of power in their own states and cities with their ability to maintain closures of businesses and schools, and to enforce social distancing through their police departments.
Is this “resistance” with a capital R, or reluctance for the sake of safety? There may be only one way to find out.
