RE: Justified Outrage?

I didn’t realize cyberattacks against schools had increased so much. That’s crazy. Good luck dealing with that!

It’s a familiar pattern, though, isn't it? Safeguards often look unnecessary, until they’re removed and a disaster strikes. Then people complain that there was no preparation, even though the preparation once existed and was cut.

We have two high level versions of this just in recent memory. The Obama admin created infrastructure aimed at preparing for pandemics. Then Trump is elected and cuts it all as wasteful, and boom COVID hits. Suddenly the consequences of scaling back preparedness became part of the national conversation. Well.... all the conservative commentators just blamed Obama for not preparing, ignoring the reality that he had prepared.

Arnold Schwarzenegger complained about a similar experience as governor. During a major wildfire, he was surprised by how little preparation the state had, not even having adequate emergency supplies. Afterward, he pushed for stronger planning and crisis readiness. Yet his successor reportedly viewed those measures as unnecessary and rolled them back, leaving the state scrambling again when the next wildfire came.

It’s frustrating how often lessons seem to be forgotten...