Risk averse

I've lived in D.C. for the better part of two decades. Nearly my whole adult life.

Something folks aren't talking about nearly enough—a giant elephant in the room—is the amount of "brand protection" going on right now in American politics.

I don't mean fear of Trump or political persecution, although those can overlap.

When I say "brand protection," I mean the things someone in the political arena does to preserve their career longterm. It's not even necessarily "reputation protection," which is a somewhat different thing.

"Brand protection" is more about not carrying your weight of the overall burden. It’s letting others do the hard work. It’s letting them take the risks and paying the price for doing the obvious things that need to be done to protect our democracy.

Those engaged in "brand protection" are the folks in politics who believe there's a decent chance we'll get through this (actually, some probably don’t), and they’re avoiding the expense of any personal political capital that would be required for proactively helping because they wanna come out on the other side of this thing stronger than ever, so they stay low-key.

There are a LOT of politicians, journalists, anchors, and pundits doing this right now.