At noon Wednesday, a new era officially begins as former Vice President Joe Biden is sworn in as the president of the United States.
There are certainly reasons to be excited and hopeful — we listed seven of them last week — but we must also be pragmatic. Just like the stroke of midnight that heralded 2021 didn’t magically erase the horrors of 2020, neither will Biden’s inauguration miraculously undo the last four years under Donald Trump.
It will take time to re-implement the environmental regulations Trump rolled back. It will take time to reorganize the tax structure that Trump overhauled. It will take time to reestablish relationships with foreign allies and rebuild trust in America’s institutions. None of these changes can happen overnight.
Democrats might hold a solid majority in the House, but the 50-50 tie in the Senate means partisan politics can once again stall forward motion, even with Vice President Kamal Harris as a tie-breaker.
While we would like to hope that the stark partisanship and polarization of the last few years would have encouraged all members of Congress to learn to play nice and work together — after all, we’ve heard constant calls for unity and healing in the last few weeks — we’ll believe it when we see it.
We’re also hopeful that a Biden administration will bring a more coherent response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The piecemeal approach, state by state, with no overarching guidance has led to almost a year of spikes and surges and multiple waves and hundreds of thousands of deaths in the U.S.
On top of that, the chronic miscommunications (or lack of communication) between federal and state governments recently led states to lower the age to receive the COVID vaccine, because states thought a national stockpile was being released for use. Except there was no national stockpile, and states were left scrambling as demand skyrocketed, but supplies remained limited.
So, understandably, we’re frustrated. Last year was a nightmare for most of us, and 2021 isn’t off to the best start.
We do think things can get better, but we’re practical enough to know that change takes time. And patience. And perseverance. So we’re looking to the future with cautious optimism, but as we said earlier, we’ll believe it when we see it.
