In The Conversation, David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns every Wednesday.  David Brooks: Gail, how did you survive the storm? We here in D.C. got off light. I spent much of the weekend stocking up on water, batteries and spicy gum drops in preparation for the worst, but my family had nothing worse than a few hours of lost power.  Gail Collins: I’m stranded in Ohio. Fond as I am of this part of the country, I’m really anxious to get back to my city.  And out of respect for the trauma of the storm I will try to refrain from reminding you that Mitt Romney is on record wanting to get rid of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  David: I’m not sure that’s quite fair on FEMA. If you go back and rewatch the debate you’ll see that Romney is dodging the FEMA question by going broad and talking about deficits. John King, the questioner, understood the dodge and tried unsuccessfully to bring him back to the question. Subsequent commenters seem less aware than King, for whatever reason.  I must say this was the first news event where I thought Twitter clearly outperformed television news. I spent a little bit of time watching TV reporters on windswept beaches clinging to lamp posts. When that got old after five minutes, I followed the storm on Twitter as it swept through lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, possibly the most Twitter-heavy areas on earth. There were reports and pictures from everywhere all at once. It was actually quite moving as the images came in—from the building that lost its façade, videos of transformers exploding, pictures of the Hoboken train station.  The emotional shock was contagious, as people all across the city began to register the power of the storm. And it was like being part of a depleted platoon mid-battle. Every few minutes somebody else on my Twitter field would announce they’d lost power, and they’d vanish.  Gail: O.K., I admit it. I don’t do Twitter. But this may convert me.  David: The best comment I’ve seen so far was on Walter Russell Mead’s consistently excellent Via Meadia blog. In an essay called “Nature and Nature’s God,” Mead reminds us that New York is usually a place where people are scarcely aware of nature, except that it’s harder to get a cab in the rain. People are busy leading the lives they’ve created for themselves.  But then something like this happens to remind you that it is an illusion to believe that you are in control of your own life. Much larger forces are out there, capable of sweeping you and everything away. “Somewhere in the future, each of us has an inescapable appointment with irresistible force,” Mead writes. It could be a natural disaster, an illness, or something else, but it’s coming.  Gail: Wait a minute. I agree that people in New York do not spend a lot of time in direct communication with nature. But I don’t think they fool themselves about the degree to which they’re in control of their own lives. We’re totally aware that disaster could strike at any minute, and that it’s no respecter of rank or wealth. Terrorists attack, criminals attack, runaway cabs attack. I used to work for the tabs so I could go on and on. But it is true that we’re more likely to imagine falling through a subway grate than being carried off by the tide.  David: I actually think people in less affluent times built their lives around this awareness. They saved more. Resisted debt more. Raised their kids more strictly because there was less of a cushion if you messed up.  If this storm has any cultural impact — and they usually only do in the most ephemeral sense — it will be to remind people to build low and sturdy. I wouldn’t say our government is built to withstand some future shock (too much debt, too much disunity). This election campaign suggests we’re not going to fix that soon.  Gail: You know, we get along so well I sometimes forget we really do have different political worldviews. The message I take away from the storm is that in natural disasters, people can’t help themselves. They need a strong government to swoop in with a rescue operation. A government with a sturdy FEMA that has not been dismantled by a feckless White House of the future.  David: We’re finally less than a week away from Election Day. It’s been a miserable year. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for it to be over. Among other things, I’m just sick of the mood that envelops people at the height of campaign season.  Gail: I have to admit I’m a little tired of writing about the campaign, but I find it sad to realize that after next week I may never again have an opportunity to point out that Mitt Romney once drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the car roof.  David: I have no confidence in my ability to predict what’s going to happen, but I guess I think Obama will be re-elected with somewhere around 290 electoral votes. His leads in places like Ohio are impressively stable. I could be completely wrong though, since Republicans do seem more enthused. But either way, I don’t expect the election will settle any of the country’s divisions and I do look forward to a time when we can talk about other things.  As Sandy reminds us, there are many other things in most people’s lives that are much more important than politics.  Gail: Politics is about everything! How we organize our society. What responsibilities we have to our fellow citizens. I wish it could hold back the tide, but at least politics lets us figure out how we’ll prepare for the cleanup.
Brooks and Collins on Twitter vs. the media, Romney vs. FEMA and what the storm did to us.