This election, the water is starting to boil. Are Americans ready to jump out yet?

By Gary Abernathy

Most people are familiar with the “frog in boiling water” metaphor. The premise is that if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. But if you drop it into cool water, and then slowly increase the temperature, the frog will remain there and eventually boil to death.

Likewise, the slow and steady increase in the level of government intervention, edicts and taxation have numbed millions of Americans to their dangers, including our gradual loss of individual freedom. We think high taxes are just the way it is. Considered acceptable these days are heavy-handed controls designed to influence our choices on the vehicles we want to drive, the methods by which we heat and cool our homes or steer us in a preferred direction on choices that previous generations made unencumbered without a second thought.

There are those who applaud the growing reach of government. For instance, the “Great Society” programs of President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s undoubtedly provided temporary assistance to millions of Americans living in poverty. But they also replaced dignity with handouts and substituted the concept of earning what we reap with the expectation that Big Brother will provide our food, shelter and warmth.

This Tuesday’s election is about more than the petty outcomes of partisan wins and losses. It’s about preserving the remaining freedoms and liberties to which we still cling versus the final erosion of the American Dream – a dream replaced by a dystopian nightmare of socialist expansion and government oppression encroaching into every aspect of our lives.

Nowhere is that government overreach more dangerous than in the energy choices available to us. As detailed here before, the cost of energy has, far and away, the biggest impact on the overall economic quality of our lives. As usual, we can look to California as the example of where our nation is headed if we don’t soon reverse course.

California has the highest gas tax in the nation. With state and local taxes combined, many communities pay sales taxes exceeding 10%. And, most detrimental of all to average citizens, the electricity rates paid by most California households are substantially higher than the national average – the highest in the continental U.S.

The state is paying the price for its choices as residents increasingly choose a better life. According to the California Department of Finance, the state saw a net loss of 216,000 residents in the fiscal calendar ending July 1, 2025, meaning that more residents moved to other states than moved into California, part of an ongoing trend. A California Policy Lab study clearly linked the outward migration to affordability issues.

Most of California’s out-of-control costs are directly attributable to its draconian environmental and “climate change” policies. In 2025, a nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office study looked at California electricity prices, concluding that residential rates increased about 47% from 2019-2023. Blame inflation, you say? Hardly, since overall inflation increased only 18% in that timeframe.

The state’s disdain for our most affordable and reliable energy sources is now threatening the very safety and security of all Californians. As the New York Post reported just last week, “California energy officials are making the decision to let go of three aging natural gas plants that have served as a backup for when high energy demand stresses the grid — with nothing to immediately take its place.”

That means the plants “won’t likely keep operating to help out in emergency demand surges on the grid.” When you hear about Californians being left in the dark, you’ll know why.

From electricity rates to gasoline prices to housing costs, California’s crushing mandates and tax structures are strangling their residents economically and even endangering their safety. “Thank God I don’t live in California,” you might say.

But guess what? Those same principles are the basic platform of most Democrats running for office, especially the socialists or socialist-supported candidates on the ballot Tuesday. Just like Californians grew numb over time to the crushing mandates and taxes being slowly imposed on them year after year, so have many other Americans grown accustomed to socialist-style government creeping into their lives.

But here’s the good news: That popular frog metaphor referenced above is based on myth. In reality, a frog dropped into water where the temperature gradually increases will jump out when the water gets too hot. That’s a hopeful thought, reminding us that it’s never too late to reverse the tide of socialism and government oppression.

Thousands of Californians are fleeing their beloved state each year, having finally awakened to the reality that their government has stolen their freedoms, unfairly confiscated their property through onerous taxation, and endangered their safety and security by attempting to outlaw affordable and reliable energy.

Across the country, Republicans and independents are being joined by a growing number of America-loving Democrats to declare enough is enough. Whether in Tuesday’s election or the presidential contest of 2028 or the election after that, there’s still time to reverse course.

But the sooner the better. While we might be able to jump out of the boiling water, the question eventually becomes, is there a safe place left to land?

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing opinion columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.