There’s more than one way to see the differences of policy and politics in Whitewater.
By one way of thinking, these differences are merely of taste, like a preference for blueberries over raspberries. Although one cannot be certain, this is probably how most officials see the decisions before government: a choice between simple preferences.
And yet, some important local political choices are not merely between blueberries and raspberries, but between raspberries and rat poison.
Grasping that some choices present a raspberry or rat-poison alternative is hard for many among Whitewater’s political class. For the most part, they act and speak as though there were no meaningful risks to one kind of action over another. They seek outcomes they might like (blueberries) over others (raspberries), but don’t believe that there’s a risk of an objectively bad outcome (ingesting rodenticide).
They’ll often ignore or deny the possibility of a raspberry – rat poison divide. When someone mentions that an issue here or there might be consequential in this way, they simply don’t believe it. For some, this is because they see no such risks; for others, it’s because they’re confident they can obscure and hide any poisonous consequences of failed policies.
Significantly, and more precisely, in a climate in which officials see only a blueberry-raspberry choice, the small preferences they have between these alternatives become to them issues of real importance. They’ll fight, sometimes tooth-and-nail, over their choice of berry as against someone else’s preference.
If one looks at Whitewater’s now-retired political class in its seventies or eighties, one finds septuagenarians and octogenarians who either think local policy alternatives offer trivial risks, risks that they can trivialize, or consequences of whatever kind they can conceal.
Among those a bit younger, in their sixties, there’s a similar view, but perhaps not as strongly held.
In any event, Whitewater has more who would doubt or deny the meaningful consequences of policy than she deserves.
Still, there is this reassurance: if one does believe in meaningful differences and the consequences from them, it’s possible to take a longer view of the city. One needn’t scramble every day, to minimize, trivialize, or conceal. Actions and their consequences will prove, sometimes, too profound ignore or hide.
For those who believe – or want others to believe – that alternatives are always no more than between raspberries and blueberries, I’d guess that politics and policy are both exhausting and empty.
So much the better – by contrast – to see an occasionally greater range of risk, in the advancement good policy and a sustaining focus on what matters most.