The Undecided

I read a poll this week that said that something like 40 percent of people still support the president, and another 4 percent are undecided.

There’s a separate essay to be written on the 40 percent, and how hard it is to see democracy surviving the “leadership” of a guy who genuinely believes he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and get away with it — and he might be right.

But it’s the undecided who really get me. If 4 percent of America really is undecided, that’s an awful lot of people: let’s say 8 million, if two-thirds of about 12 million are of voting age. (That’s a little more than the combined population of Croatia and the country of Georgia.)

There has been no other topic of conversation for five years — until Covid came along and killed more than 150,000 Americans. And some people still can’t decide?

Politicians (especially executives) make decisions. That’s their job. And decisions made and unmade have made the United States not great but, for the first time, pitied.

In a couple of months, it’s our turn to make a decision about those decisions. About who’s responsible. About which way we want to go as a country, as a society.

Decide. And decide well. Because there’s no longer any question as to what a difference four years can make.