I see this with new apartment buildings in my small, NIMBY-dominated town.

Building proposed: "It will be too expensive! We need housing for those making 10% of median income, not for those making the median income!"

Building mid-construction: "This building is unbelievably ugly! How could we let this happen to our town?!"

Building completed: "This building is completely vacant! Why did we allow this to be constructed? It's just proof we should never build anything again, it's not needed."

18 months later, building fully occupied, lots of happy residents with mixed incomes: Silence, because they are too busy complaining about all the other buildings.

I heard a similar statement recently, which is that due to the nature of politics, there are decades where nothing is possible, followed by a couple of years where everything is possible, and you spend the former preparing and pushing for the work that will happen in the latter.

The opposite is also true. We can descend slowly into dystopia and we forget how good it can actually be.

It is fun to observe everything come to an equilibrium with positive outcomes until someone lights the atmosphere on fire.