In this Year of the Gray Rhino, I wrote for the New York Observer about how issues that are anything but the unexpected have sideswiped the Democratic and Republican parties:

This year’s presidential campaign is full of the unexpected. Yet the underlying issues are anything but. It’s hardly news that middle- and working-class incomes have stagnated and that Americans are fed up with a government that even squabblesover an impending public health crisis like Zika. Why, then, have the country’s two leading parties been taken aback by voters who are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore?

It’s because everyone—not just politicians—underestimates the power of the obvious problems that loom right in front of us. So it’s a surprise when inaction creates unpleasant consequences. The Democratic and Republican parties are learning this lesson the hard way.

The truth is that we get into most trouble when we’ve ignored obvious problems. I call these issues “gray rhinos” because they are huge and charging right at us and ought to be harder to ignore. Yet we miss the most important information—like calling rhinos black and white even though they are all gray.

Read the full article at observer.com