I have been thinking about the old frog-in-the-pot metaphor.

We all know it. Put a frog in cool water and turn on the heat. The temperature rises slowly and the frog does not notice until it perishes.

It is tempting to say we are in the time of the frog and the pot, as the ratchet turns and the noose tightens. The Trump administration consolidates power bit by bit while the constitutional guardrails strain under the load. There is protest, litigation, organizing, resistance. Yet the center feels stalled. We are the frogs, not hopping until it is too late.

All Too Human

The problem is that this metaphor is not true. In reality, as the water warms, the frog becomes more active. Once the heat rises past a certain point, the frog leaps out.

It is only humans who debate how hot the water is, or say it is not that bad, or wait for better timing.

Frogs jump to avoid danger. We wait and wait and act only when the pain becomes too much.

At some point the heat becomes inarguable and a breaking point arrives. But since we are so differently situated, without the uniform instincts of our friends the frogs, the trigger does not produce one reaction. We hop in all directions. Courts push one way. Governors another. Some take to the streets. Others retreat. Institutions split. Our jumps are not unified.

This can save a democracy or tear it apart.

Another Way

There is another way to think about collective response, a way to avoid desperate, chaotic leaps.

I keep picturing a murmuration of starlings over a field. A predator dives and the flock turns as one body. No leader. No plan. Yet the boundaries hold. Small adjustments draw the shape together and keep it from breaking.

Can those of us hoping to hold onto our democracy move like that?

We do not need a convention. We need enough people responding early. Sand in the gears. Small refusals. Early litigation. Clear public lines. Pressure released before the pot boils.

These movements do not erase the crisis, but they keep the system from exploding all at once. They exert a different kind of pressure, a pressure to remove the power of the dictator.

The frog jumps when it must. The flock turns before it has to.

Can we?