A Happy Day

 Dear Fellow Americans, and a European or two,

This is a happy day. Lately happy days have been rare, and we will all struggle many more months. But happiness is nearly always there. Today is the end of Trump and tomorrow the beginning of a new American era.

Joe Biden has taken a lot of heat from progressives and leftists. I belong there, but try to be less judgmental than observant. What I observe right now is that the Biden administration might be the most progressive in my lifetime. Up to now, that honor goes, in my view, to Lyndon Johnson for a civil rights and Great Society agenda that rivaled the New Deal. But at the same time, he brought us so deep into Vietnam that it took years of protests and military defeats to get us out.

I had similar hopes for Barack Obama, with Biden as a sidekick. He had the capacity to move the American mind mightily towards the mountaintop that King saw. But he could not move American politics. He could not really believe and then could not deal with the obstruction, the misuse of democracy, and the magical thinking of the Republican Party. Most of us could not believe the incompetence, the attack on democracy, and the fraudulent words of Donald Trump.

Joe Biden is no longer Obama’s sidekick, no longer his partner in the constant plea to Republicans to play ball. Where he will go and where he can go will be gradually decided over the next years.

What makes today a happy day is that the direction will be positive for the first time in years. I look forward to thinking “Do more!” instead of “Not that!” I look forward to hearing good news at night, at least sometimes.

My friend and index-writer Nancy Gerth wrote to me about her friend’s suggestion to celebrate Biden’s inauguration by displaying an American flag tomorrow. I tried to buy a flag today, but couldn’t. I will ask my neighbor if I can borrow one of her flags.

We can be happy for ourselves and happy for America.

Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
January 19, 2021