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Parting Reflections from 2020
This year was bad, but it wasn’t all bad.
There is an understandable rush to move on from the year 2020. Natural disasters, a global pandemic, economic ruin, and a high stakes political election created an uncomfortable year, to say the least. Good riddance.
Sure, I welcome 2021 and the potential return to normality just as much as the next guy. Who would have thought that even trivial activities and mild social interaction would be so missed?
But is it possible that we are moving on from 2020 too quickly? As the saying goes, when you lose, don’t lose the lesson. What if, in the mad dash to rid ourselves of this year, we are losing the lesson? What if there were valuable lessons learned the hard way from this past year’s debacle that might be squandered by the haste?
My writing tends to be political, so why not start with politics? For the first time in his life, Donald Trump was held accountable. He had quite the hand as well, like a war chest of funds compared to the “Death Star,” the political advantage of incumbency, a pandemic that upended the way we vote, and a historically sticky base. Despite this, the American people rebuked the president on a historic scale. Biden captured the largest share of the vote for a challenger since FDR.
