And yet…

Don’t let craziness rob you of the joy of Jan. 20

There are a hundred reasons to be pessimistic about the future of our nation. To underline that point, let us review a few things we have learned about America and ourselves in just the last year:

That even after the tragic videotaped death of George Floyd and the righteous multi-cultural and global indignation that followed supposedly woke people up to the truth of black complaints about law enforcement and abuse, it took an attack on white police officers by white police officers who were very likely let into the Capitol by other white police officers to make America wake up to the fact that America might have a problem with policing.

That despite a 150-year history of white violence in response to Black economic and political progress; despite a serious attempt at capturing and killing the governor of Michigan; despite the fact that the pattern and behavior of the alt-right in this moment is all but laid out in detail in the ridiculous work of fiction, the Turner Diaries, the tinfoil-hat extremist Bible; and despite the fact that the ADL’s Center on Extremism calls January 6 the “most predictable terrorist incident in modern American history,” there are still high-ranking elected officials and homeland security experts who continue to say things like “We never believed that so-called patriots would attempt to overthrow their government and kill police officers, but that’s exactly what happened” with a straight face.

That there is a group of our fellow Americans who stock up on dried food, water, guns ammunition, water and all manner of gear to survive the fantasy zombie apocalypse and race war, yet in the name of freedom still refuse to wear a mask to avoid an actual airborne disease that has already killed 2 million people around the world.

That even after the mad scramble to equip American schoolchildren with both computers and functioning wi-fi to facilitate online learning throughout the pandemic, and the alarming realization that as many as 28% of Americans lack sufficient access, there is more focus on trying to get children back in school during the worst rise in COVID — but zero focus on demanding and implementing universal broadband.

That despite having access to the most sophisticated, best-trained and technologically equipped intelligence apparatus in the world, the most powerful man in the world has enough power to say he “heard a rumor” on the internet, and more than 70 million Americans would believe him.

That the damage to America’s global reputation as a moral force and as an ambassador of Democracy may take a decade (or decades) to repair.

That even though a global lockdown has clearly exposed the truth that water, air, and animals do demonstrably better without people around, there are still people who deny the human impact on climate change.

That we are at the beginning of the end of white supremacy and it is likely to get worse before it gets better.

That this list is just what’s on the surface — on top of racial and economic inequality, poverty, crumbling infrastructure and employment and the loss of healthcare lying just below.

And yet, it would be a mistake to let any of that rob us of the joy and optimism with which we should regard January 20, 2021.

In a country that men have put an incredible effort into destroying for the past four years (OK, make that the last 250 years) a woman will be a heart beat away from the presidency.

There will be music and art again in the White House — even if it’s just J.Lo.

Whatever something close to normal looks like, since we’ve all forgotten, we can now hope to get back to it — that’s assuming we will recognize it.

We can hope to travel again, even if that might not happen for another year.

And we have Rep. Jamie Raskin to show to our children as a model of courage, faith, leadership and what it means to truly believe in the American promise.

These are things worthy of celebration. And no, none of this joy comes close to balancing the weight of what we have been through. But we can feel that the tide is lifting, even if we’re still stuck somewhere near the bottom. We can breathe just a little bit better, if only for a minute. But it’s a minute we needed — and for that we should be grateful.