For the last several years, our country has been in a period of perpetual political emergency. For many if not most on both sides of the spectrum, the dullness of day-to-day politics as normal have been replaced by a do or die, now is the time attitude. We tend most often to think about how ours is a culture of outrage, but what if it really is a culture of emergency?

The father of this politics and culture of emergency is certainly Donald Trump. One of his many verbal tics is saying, “We have to, we have no choice.” This could be about China killing us on trade, or the crisis at the border, or political correctness. The intellectual case some made for his presidency, Flight 93, is an emergency, and he is the only man who can save us. Even if he is reckless at times, the times demand it.

But even if Trump started all this, Democrats became active, aggressive, and powerful purveyors of emergency the night he won the election. First came the breathless Russia investigation that was bound to see Trump exit the White House in handcuffs any day now. Fairly normal people like Pete Buttigieg started calling for court packing. And now almost every leading Democratic candidate wants to impeach Justice Brett Kavanaugh because of a milquetoast expose in the New York Times of a game of telephone played by drunk 22-year-olds four decades ago.