HOPE

I am breathing easier, this Monday morning, and my heart is lighter. I still have lingering fears about the state our democracy, with regrettably few Republicans following the example of Sen. Mitt Romney in offering their congratulations to the new president- and vice president-elect. The silence of these political hacks and hedge-betters serves to validate the conspiracy theories of a mass of Tr*mp supporters who are willing--eager, even--to believe that the election was stolen. 

They know better, these supposed leaders. This further evidence of their bad faith--if it were needed--is dispiriting, and bodes ill for the near-term future of the country. Should their intransigence this time be the echo of that when Obama was in office, the new president will be hard put to fulfill his campaign promise to reunite the country. He will be constrained to exercise his executive power for whatever he wishes to accomplish.

I take comfort in the knowledge that there will be a different, more experienced, more competent team working with him, dedicated not to the advancement of their own power or that of the president but to the needs and wishes of the American people. Gone will be the Attorney General who serves the whims of his apparent client-president; gone will be those other cabinet members, Mike Pompeo, Betsy DeVos, Wilbur Ross, Steve Mnuchin, so many of them with financial and ethical conflicts and personal agendas. And gone will be the spoiled, entitled Tr*mp clan, privileged by nepotism, who hold high offices, receive unearned salaries and are protected at the expense of the American people. Gone will be the poor, dour First Lady, so clearly, sadly, out of her depth in the position I suspect she never wanted to hold.

I do believe that Joe Biden will seek out and nominate the best and most qualified people he can find. I do believe they will act, with him, in the best interests of the country. I do believe they will be guided by facts, not fantasies; by science, not gut instincts; by the considered work of qualified public servants and intelligence officers, not by whims and personal interests. My hope is that their work will assure the people who were duped into idolizing the former president that competence, honesty, hard work and respect for decency and reason are what is needed for our recovery from the many crises that beset us.