Four years ago on the morning after Trump had been elected, I wrote that it felt like the day my mother had died. The world had changed in a terrible way and would never be the same.
“Oh, come on,” some people said to me. “It won’t be that bad. How much damage can one man do?” They also said, “Maybe he’ll rise to the occasion, and even if he doesn’t, Congress and the courts and all our other institutions will keep him from going too far off the rails.”
That wasn’t true. Trump turned out to be just as cruel and bigoted and sexist and petty and venal–and treasonous–as we had all thought he was, and the Republicans did nothing to stop him. And as to the damage he could do, we have only to look around us. 400,000 people dead and more dying every day, our alliances destroyed, autocrats encouraged and conspired with, and our own Capitol invaded and besmirched by a violent mob whose goal was not only to kill Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and other elected officials, but to overturn the government and carry out a coup which would put their leader in power forever. And they came within a hairsbreadth of succeeding.
It was both exactly what I had been afraid would happen and far worse than I’d imagined. Seeing the Capitol with broken windows, smashed doors, blood streaked on statues, and feces smeared on the floors and walls was something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime, even having watched Trump in action for four years, so it’s no wonder I’ve been holding my breath ever since January sixth and especially watching the inauguration, afraid something even worse would happen.
When Biden finished taking the oath of office, I took my first easy breath in four years. I thought of John Adams in 1776 murmuring, “It’s done. It’s done,” after the Declaration of Independence was passed.
I also thought of J.R.R. Tolkien, who had a lot to say about evil and fighting it. “Evil labors with vast power and perpetual success,” he wrote, “but in vain, preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.”
That good was more than apparent watching Joe Biden talk about unifying the country (you can imagine Aragorn making that speech) and watching Police Officer Eugene Goodman, who saved the day during the insurrection, escorting Vice-President Kamala Harris, and watching 22-year-old Amanda Gorman, who had to overcome a speech impediment to read her wonderful poem with its triumphant lines:
“We step out of the shade aflame and unafraid.
The dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light.
If only we’re brave enough to see it.
Apart from taking the medications regularly, it is generally well tolerated but always possible that you may experience side effects. viagra ordination Continue But the first patent company of Sildenafil citrate will be 20 mg to 25 mg and in time of ED patients the power should be used more than 50 mg and generally used 100 mg pills once before 30 minute of making copulation and the activity will stay up to 4 to 5 hours. cialis sale The medicine is recommended cheapest cialis australia to take minimum one hour before the love-making activity. If I ask, “Why we need cialis super active?” most answers would be, ‘it is only for erectile dysfunction’.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
They all reminded me of the Fellowship of the Ring and of Frodo and Sam, of all the people who don’t ask to be heroes, but who rise to the occasion in moments of dire need.
And with their help, and the help of millions of Americans who believe in democracy, we’ve managed to vote a would-be dictator out of office and then, when he refused to go, fought him and his minions and vanquished them. And now we have a sane and intelligent and kind and non-power-hungry person in charge, and he’s appointed sane, qualified, professional people to run the government with him, a government that’s promised to embrace all colors, creeds, and genders.
And no, I know we’re not out of the woods yet, that evil is not permanently vanquished, and that we still have almost insurmountable problems to conquer, but it’s like J.R.R. Tolkien said,
“It is not our part to master all the tides in the world,
but to do what is in us for the succour of these years
wherein we are set uprooting the evil in the fields that
we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth
to tell what weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
For today we can rejoice that we had that we’re on the right road again!
Happy Inauguration Day!
Connie Willis