New day, new era, new hope

The aphorism ‘Hope Dies Last’ was sorely tested these past 4 years. We had to prevail, not just in an election, but in an attempted coup when the election failed to remove the authoritarian incumbent bent on overturning the result.

Trump is finished as a major political force. He’s lost the kryptonite of the presidency. He’s lost his social media megaphone calling his minions out in a frenzy of treason. He’s a broken old man whose brand is toxic. He will spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours fending off civil lawsuits and possible criminal charges on financial crimes, sexual assault, election fraud; possibly even sedition.

The GOP is done with him when the Senate Majority Leader says Trump incited the insurrection with lies, and may vote to impeach so he never runs for office again. From the grave TR might tell Trump that a 3rd party didn’t work in 1912 and won’t in 2024 to return a former prez to power.

While millions of true believers will follow him to his eventual oblivion, millions more have already dumped Trump. That includes family members, friends and colleagues who danced around his deadly flame of racism, deceit, xenophobia, authoritarianism.

What attracted them in the first place I’ll never know. It would take a psychiatrist, make that a team of shrinks, to sort that out. One summed it up this way when caught up with his evil pitch in 2015: “He’s saying things no other politician is”. “Yes”, I thought without verbalizing, “So did Hitler”.

But this is a not a day to dwell on the hopeless, but on hope. We’ve a leader who appears to have the antidote, not just to ignored pandemic, but to the malaise of our damaged but not broken body politic.

Wife Mary and I will watch an inauguration that survived a deadly assault on the Congressional certification vote. We’ll be Zooming with her friends from college 50 years ago. The Pina coladas are in the fridge for a toast. Hope is here to stay.