Posturing contaminates resolve

Seems to me, 2021 began on Jan. 20.

That’s when Joe Biden was sworn in as president. Because of Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election results, opposition to Biden’s election turned into an attempted coup on Jan. 6, followed by the most hurried and justified presidential impeachment in U.S. history (that’s what should happen whenever a sitting president tries to remain in office by force).

By the time Biden’s inauguration came around, Washington, D.C., was a fortress of security — the violence had been quelled and the nation began to transition back to the rule of law. Through the rest of 2021, the feds hunted down and arrested hundreds of Trump supporters and former Trump supporters for their involvement in the Jan. 6 takeover attempt. It’s not enough, but it’s certainly a big step in the right direction.

Then, on Jan. 21, a grownup president took over from a man-child narcissist. Vaccines to fight back COVID-19 had been approved, but their distribution was initially slow, so the adults in the room took action to get Pfizer, Moderna and the single-dose Johnson & Johnson out and into the arms of Americans faster. Unfortunately, a bunch of mostly Trump supporters stymied our collective efforts to beat this virus by refusing to wear masks and get their shots, so we were never able to get to the “herd immunity” we were striving for, and the virus stayed alive.

For a while in 2021, we just about had it contained, but variants like Delta and now Omicron gave COVID new life, especially inside the anti-vaxxers. Now, we’re likely to start 2022 with yet another post-holiday resurgence.

Still, 2021 was a better year because of science and the vaccines. We’ve learned that vaccines don’t prevent everyone from catching COVID, but if you are vaccinated and you catch it, you’re not likely to become severely ill. That makes it a no-brainer: Get your shots if you want to avoid the worst of this killer pandemic. This year will be remembered for those who don’t have such brains.

Another life-or-death issue facing the world right now is climate change. I’d say we made progress this year — starting, again, on Jan. 20.

President Biden put us back into the Paris Agreement; we never should have abandoned it. And while the world climate conference in Glasgow was a disappointment in many ways, it did push the call for serious action forward.

Meanwhile, climate change became more real this year, even for the ostriches who refused to see it before. This year, we’ve seen record-breaking wildfires burning up California, droughts in the Southwest so prolonged they are threatening the region’s fresh-water supplies, and enormous killer tornadoes in the South. Maybe 2021 will be the year in which Americans woke up to the imminent danger and start to demand real action.

However, just as it did in 2020, political posturing is contaminating any national resolve we can muster up. Trump’s Big Lie — that the election was stolen from him — has undermined truth and democracy, and the fact that he was able to take control of a feckless Republican Party means his dirty deeds are not yet over.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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