In a development that surprises absolutely no one with a functioning prefrontal cortex or access to a calendar, it is winter again. The United States, a nation that prides itself on being the peak of human achievement while simultaneously being unable to keep its lights on during a stiff breeze, is currently bracing for a 2,000-mile-long atmospheric tantrum. From the desert Southwest to the salt-caked corridors of the East Coast, the sky is preparing to dump several tons of frozen indifference onto a population that is uniquely ill-equipped to handle reality. More than 200 million people are expected to be affected, which is a polite way of saying that 200 million people are about to rediscover that their modern comforts are a fragile hallucination maintained by a crumbling grid and the sheer, dumb luck of geography.

As the snow, ice, and subzero temperatures sweep across the map like a cosmic eraser, we are treated to the usual performative hysteria. The media, ever hungry for clicks and the chance to wear a branded parka in a parking lot, treats a seasonal weather pattern like a biblical plague. Meanwhile, our glorious leaders on both sides of the aisle will find a way to weaponize the frost. The Right will inevitably use the subzero temperatures as 'proof' that the planet isn't actually warming, displaying a grasp of science that would make a medieval peasant look like a physicist. The Left, in their air-conditioned enclaves, will tweet frantically about the inequities of heating costs while doing absolutely nothing to address the systemic rot of an energy infrastructure that belongs in a museum rather than in the service of a superpower. It is a bipartisan failure of epic proportions, wrapped in a thin, shivering layer of Gore-Tex.

Let’s discuss the 2,000-mile stretch of misery. It begins in the Southwest, where the sudden appearance of a snowflake causes the kind of mass panic usually reserved for a stock market crash. People who built glass-walled houses in the desert are suddenly shocked to find that glass is a terrible insulator. From there, the storm marches across the mid-section of the country, a region that prides itself on 'toughness' right up until the point their pipes burst and they realize the local government hasn't updated the power lines since the Eisenhower administration. By the time it hits the East Coast, the storm will have reached its peak theatrical potential. The financial and political hubs of the nation will grind to a halt because we have decided, as a society, that investing in resilient infrastructure is far less important than subsidizing the next useless tech startup or funding a foreign proxy war.

Then there is the threat of power outages. In any other developed nation, a winter storm is an inconvenience; in America, it is a survivalist scenario. We are told to prepare for 'prolonged' outages, a euphemism for the fact that the private companies charging us record rates for electricity haven't bothered to trim the trees near the lines in a decade. We are a nation of 200 million shivering meat-sacks waiting for the lights to flicker out because a little bit of ice on a cable is enough to dismantle the 'greatest economy in the world.' It would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic. The irony of sitting in the dark in the year 2024, staring at a dead smartphone and wondering if you have enough canned beans to survive a weekend of cold, is the ultimate indictment of our collective incompetence.

Travel disruptions are, of course, a given. Thousands of people will be stranded in airports, sleeping on linoleum floors because the airlines—which we bailed out with billions of taxpayer dollars—cannot figure out how to de-ice a wing without a three-day logistics meeting. These people will complain loudly on social media, as if their personal inconvenience is a violation of their human rights, oblivious to the fact that they chose to fly into the teeth of a predicted blizzard. It is a cycle of stupidity that repeats every year: the forecast warns us, we ignore it, the disaster happens, we blame everyone but ourselves, and then we forget about it the moment the sun comes out.

In the end, the subzero air is perhaps the only honest thing left in this country. It doesn't care about your political affiliation, your tax bracket, or your social media following. It is cold, it is relentless, and it is coming to remind us that for all our technological hubris and political posturing, we are still just animals huddling together in the dark, hoping the heater kicks back on. We deserve this cold. Perhaps a few days of freezing in the dark will force us to realize that our society is as thin and brittle as the ice currently forming on your windshield. But probably not. We’ll just wait for the thaw and go back to yelling at each other about things that don't matter while the foundation of our civilization continues to crack under the weight of the next inevitable freeze.