I knew this artist once who had been working on his craft for some years off and on. We related to each other on the same activities and often met up to talk about current artworks and projects. One day, his work passed in front of the right person, and he was paid generously for it, with potential orders for more work. While busy in talks with the new and wealthier client, he began talking to a woman, and then, without any more free time, he pushed his old clients onto other artists. The months rolled on, and he stumbled onto an offer for a nice studio, far cheaper than it should have been but more expensive than he used to be able to afford.

With a new, younger woman on his arm, a studio, and a richer client, his ego swelled. He didn’t just want to paint anymore; he also wanted to sing. He even started demanding more money for his work, all the while I had tried to softly warn him about buying the new studio, and about dating that much younger girl who seemed to be with him for the wrong reasons.

No matter that we had long been friends, or I had his best interests in mind, he would wave away any concern, even as he lost friends. Then he lost his clients, and then his young woman took money from him and stopped responding to calls or texts. After he had a studio, he could no longer afford, and his previous snubbed clients would not receive his calls.

Although that was all real and true, it was like watching a Hallmark movie or listening to a country song where the singer tells you why they are crying into their beer bottle. That episode from his life was like I was reading a fable, not from an age long past but from the here and now, where there is a warning about drinking too deeply into your own success. I believe ‘folly’ is the proper word for what happened.

The memory of the Artist’s folly came to me when I saw some recent Gallup polling numbers, numbers which could have been avoided.

Don’t let me sound too republican now, but as a young teenager who was both male and white back during Obama’s presidency, I do have explicit memories of being told by women that I should not practice debate - ever, or even speak my opinion before a woman has had a chance to give hers. I remember opening up to a woman about a true trauma that had happened in my life, and she sighed and began telling me that “women of color have worse traumas than you,” so what I was feeling wasn’t valid.

These very regular occurrences did not shift my opinion one way or the other – they were comments made without an ounce of critical thinking and thus had no impact on my own political thoughts. They were, however, not just my experiences. Over ten years, I began working with teenagers and children as a summer camp counselor for two years, and then later at Boys Town, and then at a Montessori camp up in Illinois, and all throughout, I mentored teenage boys. My experience was their experience, and I was the first adult that many could talk to about what they faced.

It is no wonder that many young men who had been abandoned by their own western culture sought out toxic ‘male’ influencers who turned the loneliness of young men into cash and a career. So, resentment stewed and stewed, and with the help of independents, republicans won the presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Power wasn’t taken by the republicans, nor exactly earned (this point, later): power ‘happened’ to the republicans.

What did they do with it? They invested in a condo they couldn’t afford; they got a new client and left the old ones. The Gallup poll I mentioned:

Since President Trump took office just a year ago, his approval rating has trended downward, with 45% of Americans approving of his work in his first month, now down to 36% to 39% (Gallup, Reuters, respectively). In a different report, Gallup reports that based on all their data, due to how people answer polls, 28% of Americans vote republican, 28% of Americans vote democrat, and a whopping 43% of Americans vote as Independent. Since this current conservative coalition has Donald Trump as their keystone (proven by some republican career politicians not seeking another term in office because President Trump said he will support their incumbents), his approval rating is their approval rating.

Recently democrats won Iowa in a total landslide. Renee Hardman is the first black woman to be elected to the Iowa State Senate and won 71.5% of the vote in a primarily red state: there are more registered republicans in Iowa than any other party. In 2025, democrats around the United States flipped 25 republican held positions of 118 in state legislatures, while Republicans flipped none. In Iowa and Mississippi republicans lost their supermajorities.

Republican congressman Jeff Van Drew agreed with 13 other Republican lawmakers who signed a letter to Leader Mike Johnson to extend health care subsidies in some form. Van Drew believes that not extending them would entirely hurt republican prospects come the next elections. Representative Jen Kiggans, who put forth the letter, said that over 40,000 people in her district rely on healthcare subsidies. “To do nothing would be wrong." Mike Lawler of New York called the failure to renew subsidies ‘political malpractice."

Were we to entertain that republicans could be financially justified in ending tax credits, it could also be true that it would be politically toxic. Too often have republicans told me that they vote for “the lesser of two evils." Thus, is continuing to lose more seats around the U.S. politically viable, even if it is ‘evil’? Clearly, poll numbers (and election losses) show a month-to-month decrease in Americans’ approval of President Trump and republicans' handling of this country's affairs.

The democrats lost a huge block of young male independents to conservatives because the left leaned too far into their own sauce – and now the republicans’ ego has grown untenable, just like the fable of my friend, the Artist, and they too seem to believe that they can be as zealous and condescending as they want. I’m a centrist, like half of America; I’ll watch it happen from the sidelines yet again. One step forward for the republicans this time and then a step back, eh?

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.