I remember reading a book when I was a kid about a king who was tired of his kingdom being full of mice, so he got a bunch of cats to chase them away. But now his kingdom was overrun with cats. So he got a bunch of dogs to chase them away. But now his kingdom is overrun with dogs (which I’m not sure why is a bad thing), so he got lions to chase away the dogs. Of course lions — being larger versions of cats — are much worse to have around, so he got elephants to chase away the lions. But now the kingdom was full of elephants, so he got mice to chase away the elephants and then we’re back where we started.

Politics is a lot like this, but for the cycle there’s just Democrats and Republicans.

“Our country is overrun with Democrats! Let’s get some Republicans to chase them away!”

“Oh no! Now our country is overrun with Republicans! Let’s get some Democrats to chase them away!”

The Democrats were counting on this cycle with that Georgia special election. Trump is unpopular, so they were thinking that people would want them — which is this error they’ve been constantly making. But the Democrats awfulness is still too much in people’s minds. Thinking Trump is a moron, boorish clout is still not the same as thinking Democrats are better. Of course the big question is will people still remember how much they disliked Democrats in 2018?

At the end of the story, I think the king learned to like living with the mice. Maybe a better ending would be to instead use traps to get rid of the mice. For a while, you’d have traps everywhere, but then eventually you would dispose of them and everything would be good. I’m not sure there’s a political analogy to that, but the question should be how to do we get out of this cycle?