Well, Thanksgiving…right?  In spite of the piled-on horrors of pandemic, poverty and politics, (alliteration’s a bitch), even this curmudgeonly correspondent, (see?), is able to make a substantial list of reasons to be thankful.  Yet, by my count, we’re 362 days away from what will be, if history holds true, my favorite of 2021, and as the glee of one more Thanksgiving meal replay begins to wane, I’ve started to refocus on the gargantuan task of the sorta-kinda accepted Biden administration to undo Trump’s chaotic, tantrum-based tsunamic destruction, (if he’s not a Russian operative, then Richard Condon was a cartoonist).  So, now what?

We’re at a point that will seem unique to most of our poorly educated populace, but one which has played out and been scholarly chronicled after the downfall and disenfranchisement of despots, (sorry, sometimes I can’t turn it off).  This will be different than the humiliating end to McCarthyism.  As scary and destructive as the HUAC was it was a much weaker brand of Kool-Aid® than the Crusades or Naziism or Stalinism or Trumpism.  We are a country wherein nearly half of us have accepted an existential threat to our livelihood and freedom from imaginary forces concocted by contemptable conspirators, (oh, please), to stoke fear into fealty.  The in-name-only Republicans who have been bullied or blackmailed into staking their futures on the socio/economic poppycock of the last four years can’t possibly stay that course without the promised or imagined nuggies from the Mad King…can they?  Enough packing the courts to provide judicial cover for Constitutionally trampled behavior!  Enough wholesale jerrymandering to skew the balance of power despite little or no attempt at real governing!  It’s long past time to put aside the impassive red/blue and rustle up some red, white and blue determination to attack and solve some real issues:  make the pandemic an historical event; retool and rebalance our economy that has leaned too far toward the uber wealthy, leaving 99% of us perpetually vulnerable; face the issue of Climate Change, fiercely and totally committed; rebuild our entire infrastructure, water, power, roads, bridges, rail, air and internet, looking to the future, to provide the cleanest, safest, most efficient network of systems, affordable to everyone, everywhere…and start NOW…well, January 21; end xenophobia, racism and all of the otherisms while we’re at it; be better, kinder, truthier!  Why not?