A True Fable on Progress

It was election time in New Hampshire, and an early couple of feet of wet snow had fallen. As I exited off I-91 to return to the Granite State, I noticed a pretty young lady trying to dig her compact car out of the small triangle of snow between the traffic light and the exit ramp. I went over to help her dig; her car was stuck up to the axles, but it moved a bit if you pushed it. She being quite stuck and I-91 well-traveled, a crowd of New Hampshirites and Vermonters quickly assembled to help push her out of the snow. Some thought we should push her back to the road, some thought we should push her forward to the road. Each side took their preferred side of the car, and new arrivals were strongly recruited to join a particular side. After each side had its push, she would try to drive out and spin her tires. After some minutes of pushing back and forth and polishing the snow under her tires to ice, a guy on the other side of the car looked at me and said, “Isn’t this like politics? You push one way, we push the other, and this car isn’t going anywhere!”

The tow-truck came and got her a half-hour later, and then I went off to vote.