Bet the ‘good news’ side of Inauguration Day

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Sunday, Jan. 17, 2021 | 2 a.m.

Inauguration Day, 2021, approaches.

Here’s the good news:

The COVID-19 vaccine is fast becoming available.

The incoming Biden administration is talking sense about helping Americans in dire need and cities and states left economically crushed because of the pandemic.

The FBI and other law enforcement officers are gathering up the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol and threatened great harm to our representatives, senators and congressional staff, as well as Vice President Mike Pence.

Twenty thousand National Guard troops, members of other police agencies, the FBI and other alphabet-type officers are surrounding and infiltrating Washington, D.C., to make sure the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is not only safe for the incoming administration but safe for the way we show democracy to the rest of the world.

Grown-ups will be confirmed shortly to lead the institutions of our federal government, which were so badly served during the Trump administration.

The walls along the border may not come tumbling down but the barricades to a sane immigration policy will start to fall.

The trade policies that made a mess of our global relations with friends and an economic mess for our farmers and small-business owners will start to get sorted.

And the coddling of our enemies — foreign and domestic — will cease.

All that should start to happen right away.

Here’s the bad news:

The roll-out of the vaccine — the actual vaccinations — which is necessary for our people to be safe and our economy to start to function again, will be dependent upon the goodwill and good sense of all Americans.

(That may take some work!)

The trillion or two dollars that will most certainly be needed to get this country and our economy going again will probably meet some resistance from GOP members of Congress who oppose deficit spending and debt. You know, those same Republicans who must have been on vacation when their avatars voted to raise the deficit to astronomical heights during the Trump administration. (Exposing hypocrisy and beating it back will also take some work).

The pending trials of insurrectionists and others who would have overthrown the democratic processes of our government will be a spectacle that will test our country’s resolve while the world is watching. (The hard work of demanding accountability through the courts lies ahead).

The whole world will see the greatest democracy on Earth confined to quarters with a military presence that belies a free and open society just to keep our leaders safe. We will look more like a military junta than a democracy. (And that picture will take incredibly hard work by the Biden administration to erase from the collective minds of friends and allies.)

And the policy agenda that President Biden wants to enact — the one that reverses the inward and downward spiraling prospects currently diminishing our country — which will declare the United States is open for business to the world, will be dependent upon our entire country working together to make us all better. That will be a sharp departure from the “go-it-alone, all-for-no-one-but-ourselves" policy of this past administration. (And that is where the really hard work must be done because each of us will have to pull his own weight.)

Yes, there is good news and bad news coming this week with the much anticipated and never-happened-quite-like-this inauguration of President Joseph Biden.

I, for one, believe that we should bet on the good news side of this equation because I have always believed that most Americans are good people — given sane and transparent leadership at all levels of government.

I also believe that this country needs to take a deep breath. First, because the vaccine and properly followed CDC guidelines should allow each of us to breathe much easier soon. And, second, giving the Biden administration a chance to help us all get better as a nation should be a priority for every American.

And that means giving him a little time.

There will be plenty of opportunity for the critics to do their thing if he fails to fulfill the great promise that caused voters to overwhelmingly elect him.

So enjoy the inauguration and what it means to the world: However messy it seems we make it to get to the peaceful transition of power, America always muddles through.

Let’s hope that’s the case yet again.

Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.