Things just seem to be stressful around the United States lately. California is on fire, Puerto Rico is in the dark, and Nazis are running around with tiki torches. We’ve even getting these threats from North Korea in response to the threats Trump sends out. It reminds me of a former time in my life. One where I was stressed out about drama, worried about my status among my peers, and determined not to stand out too much.

I’m talking about middle school.

Now, this time in my life happened a long time ago. 11 years ago I was navigating the halls of my former middle school for the first time, full of nerves and (eventually unfulfilled) expectations.

But now I come back there on a fairly regular basis as a substitute teacher, and I can see the same feelings are present in many of the students I see in the classroom. So I think I can safely say I know how similar our country’s status is to a middle school setting.

Like your local middle school, there are cliques within D.C. To prove this, I’ll provide a setting for you:

Let’s say you’re starting your first year of middle school. At your elementary school, you had a fair number of friends and considered yourself to be fairly well-liked and respected.

Once you’ve experienced middle school for long enough, however, things start to change. The people who you once considered friends all start to shift away from you and join different groups of their own.

Some stick around and remain close to you, while others act friendly to you while also not acknowledging you outside of the halls. Then there are the ones who become bullies. They get loud, obnoxious, and mean before your very eyes. Those bullies always have a leader that they look out for.

That leader happens to be our president.

If you’re one of the fellow Bullies, you respect the leader. He may or may not always say things that you agree with, but you love and respect him anyway and have no intention of getting on his bad side, because it’s easier to carry out his wrath than to be the one facing it. That is essentially what the Republicans in the Senate and Congress are doing. As Bob Corker recently said, many GOP leaders are wary of Trump’s erratic ways, but they don’t want to do anything about it. They just want to stay in his good graces because that’s easier for them.

Your side in this scenario is what I’d like to call the Resistance. Just like in "The Force Awakens," you and your fellow rebels consider the leader an enemy, while the bullies are simply his henchmen.

You see the chaos they are causing, and all you can do is fight them every chance you get, however, you have to start out small because the leader cannot be conquered if bullies are still there to be used as a shield.

The Resistance in D.C. is the Democrats. Senators like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are trying their best to fight against Trump’s madness as best as they can, but they know it’s a long road to get out the leader. They have to work small, by making it so the bullies can’t turn any of his crazy ideas into law. Once enough bullies have been fought off, then they will make their move against the leader.

The ones who are kind to you in school only, kind of toe the line between siding with the leader and siding with the Resistance. The Middle Men, as they will be known in this scenario, side with you and your fellow Resistance members when it comes to the big picture, but they won’t do much to prove it.

As cowardly as it seems, they recognize the threat level that comes with pissing off the leader. Even though this threat level typically involves a tweet from Trump, this comparison still applies.

The Middle Men in D.C. are people like John McCain, who has clearly been on Trump’s bad side for a while. Despite this, he has managed to play into Trump’s hand by endorsing him for President, while at the same time calling Trump out for dangerously promoting spurious nationalism and by voting down multiple Trumpcare proposals.

Trump respects him enough to not make him public enemy number one, but still has no problem with making snide remarks any time he steps out of line. Small, subtle jabs at the leader are good in theory because it makes the leader less powerful, but it doesn’t help because in the long run, your small efforts don’t do enough to make you a true member of the Resistance.

Of course, this is a very broad overview. Middle schools usually have more than three cliques, and of course there’s the possibility that you were a loner during your early adolescent years. Regardless, the comparison seems pretty clear, and voters can fall into these same cliques as well.

For those of you who were Middle Men in the last election, start thinking about 2018 and 2020. Are you prepared to join the Resistance, or would you rather be a bully and follow along with what the Leader says?