Light at the end of the tunnel
Yesterday, December 8, 2020, about 120 miles from where I’m sitting as I write this to you, brothers and sisters, the first mainstream, non-clinical Homo sapiens in human history received a vaccine for coronavirus in Coventry, England. Her name is Margaret Keenan, a lady in a care home who will turn 91 next week.
After receiving her treatment she was wheeled down a hallway flanked by National Healthcare workers in a scene of such dramatically moving moment as to be worthy of Shakespeare. (And as if that isn’t sufficiently historically poignant for you, the second person to be inoculated is actually named William Shakespeare.)
What a last few weeks it has been! After so long a period of hopeless drought in the world we are finally getting a little blessed rain. November marked the beginning of the end for one of the most hateful and destructive monsters in human history. It was also the month we got the grand news that the world has been gifted with not one but three vaccines. And December marks the beginning of the end of the modern pandemic that motivated those vaccines.
The year 2020 has given birth to many memes and jokes redolent with gallows humor, some funny, some a little too close to the truth as to be not so funny. Say what you will about it, 2020 is going to be a year to remember. In any case, no one would have guessed what was in store for the world this same time last year.
For me, 2020 and its mix of early curses and latter blessings will officially end on January 20, 2021. That will be the day when the world can stand down and breathe a much-needed and well-earned sigh of relief.
This recent uptick in our fortunes has indeed been serendipitous. What will January bring? Possibly the downfall of the two insider-trading criminals, the robotic non-person Kelly Loeffler and her partner in deceit, the coward David Perdue, returning effective control of the Senate to the Democrats.
Should those two disgusting villains lose in Georgia, Vice President Kamala Harris will undoubtedly have her work cut out for her after January 20. No doubt she will have to fulfill her Constitutional duty and preside over the Senate more often than most Vice Presidents have had to in recent decades.
Victory in Georgia is essential. Without it power will be retained by the Republicans and Mitch McConnell, with McConnell continuing to function as Majority Leader. Without majority leadership McConnell will be reduced to humiliating powerlessness. Certainly many votes in the Senate will come down to a 50-50 tie, with Susan Collins expressing “concern” but voting party line nevertheless.
But none of the usual Republican trickery will matter, because Kamala Harris will break any tie and truth, justice and integrity will prevail. As long as we remain a united party, the Senate will be ours again.
With control of the House and the Senate under control, President Joe Biden (and how I love writing those words!) will have the mandate and the power to undo the rapacious destructiveness of the illegitimate minority presidency of Donald Trump. President Biden and Vice President Harris will be able to show the world and, more importantly, Donald Trump’s slouching, low-information acolytes, the true power of science. They will use science to bring the pandemic under control and put America back in the fight against global warming. They will restore prosperity and peace to the tortured American landscape.
We, as Americans, still have work to do. A critical midterm election is coming up in 2022. A strengthened mandate in the House and Senate will make the job of restoring America to her former glory easier. Together we can make America great again — after the ruinous tenure of the child rapist and murderer Donald Trump.
It has been a hard fight and a horrible year, culminating in triumph. After we defeat Loeffler and Perdue, let’s all take a brief, much-needed, much-deserved rest. But then let’s get back to work. We have a pandemic to defeat, global warming to stop and much-needed work in social justice to advance. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.