During this initial coronavirus sheltering there's a lot of talk and a lot of display of togetherness. That we're all in this together, and people are going to lengths to help each other. ("In this together" with the caveat of setting aside for the moment that people of color and poorer people are hit harder, which would be another column.) The question here is, will that togetherness continue after the storm has settled down? Not hardly. Some togetherness with one another may continue, but togetherness with our government, our economic leadership? Hell no. There will be conflict between the parties as an aftereffect, but in addition there will be something much deeper. A fundamental dissatisfaction from the people toward our whole sense of priorities. A demanding, or at least an attempt to demand, fundamental change.

Because, whether people will have it all articulated in their minds or not, they're going to know three things out of this.

One, this ain't the end of it. Coronavirus will come back, or some other pandemic, or global conflict will tank the economy too. And climate change is going to be much more in focus in peoples' view of the future. If coronavirus hurt us this bad, isn't a bunch of climate change effects just going to be a slightly slower moving but similar problem? If California is going to burn up and the Deep South get hit with worse hurricanes and the central bread basket hit with droughts that make it hard to grow, and other effects we haven't considered yet, isn't that going to take us way down too? What we'll feel certain of is that this is not the only such event that will be coming along.

Two, leadership made it worse. It would have been bad but didn't have to be this bad. And this is not just about the White House. Preparation, taking it seriously, focusing on people instead of polls. Leadership varies but being at the mercy of which group happens to be driving the clown car when the next problem hits is intolerable.

Three, that the fact that so many of us live so close to the edge even in good times is part of what made it so bad. A system where so many live barely on the edge in good times is a system that's bound to throw the nation into a ditch and cause immensely more pain than needed when the good times inevitably turn bad for a while.

There may be a feeling that we pulled together but there's also going to be anger. That some of the lives lost, and health problems, and health care costs, are because of our screwy way of providing health care. That the economic pain was much worse than needed because of items two and three above. Life has downturns and no avoiding that, but are we, the people who pulled together, going to just go along with everything going back to "normal" while we wait for the next hit? There's likely to be a lot of impatience if leadership does that. If they just try to get back to where we were before the virus hit and act like, then, everything is fine. No, it won't be fine. The nation and a whole lof of it's people were sitting ducks for whichever problem would hit at any given time.

People are not likely to feel it's fine to go back to the "normal" priorities that put the priority on what peaks of growth corporate America can achieve, on politicians' election chances, on stock market numbers and GDP. It's a stormy world and focus has to be on how people are doing so they're on more solid footing when the next bad wave hits. And so, if we're taking so much pain in the down times, we get our full share of the gravy in the good times.

There will be some feeling of having pulled together, but it won't be a togetherness feeling with corporate America, with political America, with stock market and GDP America.

Like passengers who got swept off a ship in a storm, yes, we all pulled together and got most of us to safety on shore, and then we're happy to be safe, but we're also glaring at the captain and the designers of the ship, with a, "What the heck was all that!?" look. Why was the ship constructed and run in a way that let it get so much more swamped than it needed to be? Why weren't there enough life boats for the passengers? Why did the captain and designers seem to have better life boats and get to shore hardly damp? And, no, we're not going to settle for the ship being rebuilt the same way. Going forward it's got to be built to handle storms better and to put the well-being of the passengers first.

Togetherness with one another? Yes. Togetherness with the way things have run? Not hardly. There will be a new level of push for a change in priority. A push that will either get satisfied by leaders smart enough to do it, or it might get suppressed and nothing happens. But in that case it will build pressure that will burst out in more Tea Parties and Occupy Wall Streets and election of wayward pseudo-populists who do more messing things up than making things better. A pressure that will either bring constructive change, or come out later in problems. But, if you're a leader, don't kid yourself. It will take on some form and have some impact on power and politics in the future. A smart leader would help make the constructive changes happen.

We the people who pulled together, we'll want change. Not to destroy corporate America or political America or ruin the stock market or GDP, but we sure as heck don't want to be second fiddle to them either. We are what is important, and we need to be the focus of how things run.

Tom Cantlon is a columnist for a Western daily newspaper and business owner. Email to comments at tomcantlon dot com