The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Things are different now: The daily howl of Trump’s anger has been replaced with the steady beat of Biden competence, like the invading cicadas who you hear, as James Agee wrote, only when you catch yourself listening.
The front page is pleasantly boring, lots of human interest stories cushion the tragic tales of George Floyd and the COVID-19 nightmare playing out in India. Phil Mickelson makes news with his historic win for the old guys in the PGA Championship.
The Washington Post gives retired reporter and society maven Sally Quinn more than 2,000 words to regret the disappearance of the Washington A-List of which she and her late publisher husband Ben Bradlee were ringmasters. It wasn’t just Trump that killed it, she concludes; it was Barack Obama who she heard didn’t like people. Interesting drivel.
Meanwhile, the new president fills out his government with the most competent staff and Cabinet since Reagan appointed Republican stars like Jim Baker and George Shultz.
Biden’s vaccination program has been a miracle of public-private cooperation, proving what America is capable of when working together. As the real story behind Operation Warp Speed comes into focus, it is apparent that once again the American people who are so often told to suspect their government were saved by it.
Millions are alive today because of the geniuses at DARPA: the Pentagon’s shop of brainiacs who previously invented the Internet, self-driving cars and breast cancer cures, and who worked tirelessly with private contractors to develop a completely new technology called mRNA in the production of a vaccine.
After solving COVID-19, Biden is on to infrastructure where we have lagged sadly behind our competitors while punching ourselves out in the Middle East. Russia and North Korea are toothaches, but China is a heart attack. The world’s oldest civilization has risen with the help of American commerce and technology to pose the greatest challenge to our nation’s future. China builds cities while we argue about fixing our highways and bridges.
Biden has invited the Republicans to compromise, but it is not in the cards. Trump is a pouting Achilles in Mar-a-Lago who still runs the show and promotes challenges to the 2020 vote like the bizarre comedy playing out in the Arizona Legislature, where statesmanship has been replaced by looniness and second-banana politicians craving attention.
The GOP angst is largely ignored by the new president. Instead, he seems quietly focused on the tasks at hand. And there are many. The American education system is in shambles with as many as 30% of students not graduating high school.
Our health-care system costs between two and three times what it does in comparable countries. Wages are far too low for most of our working class whose standard-of-living has advanced 1% in the last 20 years. The lower 50% of Americans own 1.5% of the country’s wealth.
Much of our infrastructure belongs in a third world country. President Biden is leading the march on these challenges with half an army since the Trump Republicans have chosen ambush as a strategy.
How could this be the case, we ask? We keep hoping that the courage of Rep. Liz Cheney will become infectious, and that a significant number of Republican patriots will rise to the moment. Biden is betting that by delivering on needed programs, even by dint of thin majorities in Congress, that the public will take notice and force compromise in the 2022 election.
It’s a tough bet. presidents usually lose seats in Congress in the first midterm, and Republican legislatures across the country are busy gerrymandering House seats and passing laws to discourage Democratic voting. Even if they don’t succeed, the Trump GOP has locked conservatism into the Supreme Court as a fail-safe.
While the headlines no longer ring with the deafening din of Trump’s latest outrage, the next four years will be the great story of our time. Will we regress or move forward? Will we embrace diversity and modernity and resume our leadership role in the world?
Or will we shrink from the challenge and further delude ourselves with new propagandas advocating for old prejudices? The choice is stark, the stakes are high, and Joe Biden is the bellwether.
