These past four years have been a waking nightmare. Every day, it's been a barrage of lies, mismanagement, and neglect from a President with no previous governmental experience, no redeeming qualities, and no sense of duty.
2020 brought everything bad about the modern GOP right out into the open. They're willing to let 400,000 Americans die rather than wear a piece of cloth on their face. They're more interested in holding onto power than continuing our democracy. And they're willing to commit sedition to get their way.
Biden and Harris will have a lot of work to do, just repairing the damage the GOP has done. But beyond that, they've got to contend with all the things they ignored, from the pandemic to foreign interference in our elections to the right-wing terrorists who attacked the Capitol.
And to be fair, some of the issues we need them to put a spotlight on are things we as a country have ignored for too long: racial justice, climate change, universal health care. The pandemic exposed how weak our institutions have really become, because we've left folks behind. That needs to stop, if we are to indeed build back better.
It's a heavy task, but I have hope. Hope because the need for these things is out in the open, plain as the hospitals that have been overwhelmed, plain as videos of police beating up protestors and journalists, plain as the police shooting of a Black man in broad daylight as he was getting calmly into his car with his kids.
The Biden/Harris Administration isn't an excuse for us to go back to sleep. To imagine ourselves waking up in a better country.
It's a chance for us to get to work.
I'll be watching the swearing-in ceremony today, live. You can view it here, on the Biden/Harris inaugural page, or on Youtube