It was a lovely surprise to find an email from County Legislator Tom Nelson in my inbox last week–especially since I’d recently called him out for siding with Albany on a controversial wetlands bill.

To his credit, he offered to meet for lunch.

We met at The Fish in Bemus Point last Thursday, and the man who greeted me at the door was so familiar, I did a double take. This wasn’t some cold bureaucrat who might be comfortable in Albany–it was someone who looked like he could have been my cousin. With his Swedish features and easy demeanor, he reminded me of the well-meaning, good-natured Jamestown folks I grew up with.

He may have arrived a little miffed at me–and I wouldn’t blame him–but I’ve always said, if you don’t want to be questioned, don’t run for office. He told me he doesn’t think of himself as a politician, and I believe him. His whole career has been about helping others–from his years as a history teacher in Frewsburg to his time on the city council and various boards, and now in his second term as a county legislator. Service, not status, seems to be what drives him.

I’ve always believed the stories people tell say a lot about who they are. He had great stories about the lake, how he met his wife near it, proposed to her by it, and danced summer nights away at the Surf Club in Bemus.

I said. “The lake has been a big part of your life, too.”

I asked about his stance on the wetlands initiative, and he explained that wetlands can be a good thing for a lake, filtering out toxins and improving water quality. But I expressed the idea that Albany’s overreach signals something more than wetlands.

I had given Nelson the floor for the hour, but I wasn’t very good at it. “Margot Interruptus” was in full swing–something I now apologize for. But I wanted to impress upon him that local decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. What happens at the county level can ripple outward in ways that deeply affect the people who live here, especially when those decisions intersect with larger, more troubling national trends. They deserve to be considered with the full weight of that broader context.

It seemed to me Nelson carried a certain naiveté about the direction things are heading, as if the system was mostly working as intended.

I shared some of my deeper concerns–chief among them, the steady erosion of constitutional rights over the past few decades, and one issue that strikes at the heart of democracy: censorship. While we didn’t dive too deeply into it, I believe leaders at every level–local, state, and federal–should be informed about the growing risks faced by those who dissent. We’ve seen troubling examples: individuals de-banked for their views, books quietly removed from shelves, and doctors penalized for challenging the mainstream COVID narrative, some even losing hospital privileges or medical licenses. I also mentioned the issue of diminishing water rights–something I had written about the week before–which, to his credit, he acknowledged he hadn’t known much about.

For all the good Nelson has done for the world–taught our children, tended to a wonderful and thriving family, served our community–it’s what he doesn’t know that concerns me. And it seems to be a theme among elected officials in this country–a complete aversion to addressing the elephant in the room. While we were safe and cozy at a lakeside restaurant, chaos reigned in Los Angeles, another plane had crashed in India, and Israel was planning their attack on Iran for later that day. And as the weekend approached, wildfire smoke settled in our city, the breaking news bells on cable channels chimed with regularity.

This, quite sadly, has become our life. We are spectators with our bowls of popcorn, watching the never-ending chaos of the world unfold on our screens.

And yet, very few leaders have acknowledged the chaos, connected the dots, or sought to reassure us. To do so is unpopular–and possibly career-ending. The system has created passive leaders, more afraid of losing political favor than of failing the people they serve. Instead of bold truth-tellers, we get cautious managers, trained to toe the line and keep the waters calm, even as the ship takes on water.

Our leaders are fiddling while Rome burns.

America is reaching its breaking point–not only from the constant churn of national and global chaos, but from leaders who seem disconnected from the scale of the transformation underway. In a time that demands courage, clarity, and critical thought, silence or ignorance is no longer neutral–it’s costly.