"All comes out even when the day is done, and more even still when all the days are done", said Voltaire, and whether this is true, it certainly sounds good. To my friend who for four years, through repeated impeachments, lies, and administrative and policy chaos insisted that Trump was the greatest president in American history, a verifiably false claim, I can now say: actually Joe Biden is. every statement, every stroke of the pen, every appointment, every policy proposal promulgated by Biden in his first month in office has been exactly the prescription for national healing, health, and success, just, as we say, what the doctor ordered. Biden is filling his cabinet with proven, moderate to progressive professionals of the highest possible quality, rather than Trump's litany of billionaires and political hacks. Whereas Trump's executive orders were ludicrous, lunatic, and harmful to the country and the environment, every one of Biden's is a step forward in reversing the damage left behind by the malign Trump administration. Verily, happy days are here again. The contrasts between Trump and Biden are almost unfathomably enormous, but are perhaps best illustrated by their respective responses to the Covid 19 pandemic. Consider President Biden's remarks, the speech he gave to the American people on the occasion of the five hundred thousandth person in the United states to officially die from the virus, a number which a year ago was unthinkable, and, in some ways, still is. As he has before, Biden made reference to the empty chair at the family dinner table, to the brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers who will never again be seated there, and the emptiness their absence has created and will always create within the hearts and minds of those they left behind. He reminded us that he is well acquainted with horrible personal loss, as indeed he is, with the well known deaths of his wife, daughter in a car accident years ago, and the more recent loss of his son Beau to cancer. And yet, the new president found it within himself to comfort us, to encourage us, to urge us to greater feats of accomplishment and endurance. Biden's inspiring words are remindful of Goethe's quote" "There is no situation which cannot be ennobled through achievement or endurance".No normal emotional person could possibly have been unmoved and uninspired by Biden's well chosen, beautiful, inspiring words. Contrast that to Trump, whose most inspiring, comforting words were "we have turned the corner". We have turned the corner. nothing about the suffering, the loss, the pain, and his compassion or felling towards it. Nothing, ever. We should be thankful, and most of us are, that for the first time in several years, we finally have a real human being in teh white House, with genuine concern for the welfare of others. We deserve that, if nothing else. we who patiently waited out trump finally got what we so richly deserve - a decent person as president. we came out even. maybe we even came out ahead.
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