This Year From Hell
The
Avenue Beat song rings true: “I am kinda done. Can we just get to 2021?”
Ms.
Rice is a former national security adviser.
- Oct. 13, 2020
Finishing up the dinner dishes one
evening last week, I was jolted by a song on my teenage daughter’s playlist. In
the radio-edited version of “F2020,” Avenue Beat delivers a captivating chorus,
followed by: “I am kinda done. Can we just get to 2021?”
Turning to my daughter, I joked,
“Shouldn’t that be a sort of anthem for this year?”
“For many in my generation, it already
is,” she replied.
It’s only October, and 2020 feels like
the longest, most brutal year in memory. There are now almost 215,000 lives lost in the United States,
vulnerable children missing months of education and tens of millions of people
facing economic devastation. President Trump’s willful failure to confront
Covid-19 has brutalized our country.
If that is not
enough, Mr. Trump continuously stokes division, fear and hatred in this moment
of historic racial reckoning, while running roughshod over the rule of law, and
our democratic norms and institutions. Almost every day, it seems something
crazier happens than on the day before, further straining our collective
credulity.
Still, we are most likely facing even
worse in the next few months. The pandemic could crescendo in winter. The
Senate is poised to ram through a radical and illegitimate Supreme Court
nominee. Political tensions are escalating, as Mr. Trump musters white
supremacist groups and threatens to thwart the peaceful transfer of power
should he lose re-election.
The sense of exhaustion, frustration
and foreboding so many of us feel is aptly captured in the Avenue Beat song.
But so is what gives me hope — getting to 2021. The prospect of sweeping
change, while by no means assured, appears to be in sight.
To dull the pain and bolster my sanity,
I allow myself occasionally to take a few deep breaths and just imagine.
I imagine a future with competent,
compassionate presidential leadership, which trusts science and adopts policies
designed to protect the American people. A future in which we truly bend the
Covid-19 curve, a future with a safe and effective vaccine that is free as well
as fairly and rationally distributed. I conjure a time when a constructive
Congress swiftly enacts economic relief that will ease the suffering of
ordinary Americans, support our public schools and other essential state and
local government services, and rescue small businesses.
Daring to dream
really big, I envision a president who insists on the dignity and worth of
every human being, who fervently believes that what unites us as Americans is
far more powerful than what divides us. A president committed to equal justice
and healing; to ambitious reforms to combat systemic racism and reduce
inequality; to humane immigration policies; and to transformational investments
in education, housing, health care, the environment, jobs and economic mobility
for those who need it most.
Exhaling, I think about sleeping
soundly again at night, knowing we have an experienced, empathetic, sober and
steady president — one who refrains from tweeting personal attacks on his
opponents. One who respects rules and norms, understanding that the law applies
equally to him. I long for a leader who aims to serve all Americans, who doesn’t
bilk taxpayers to line his own pockets or corrupt the federal government to
preserve his own power.
Finally, straining not to let my
imagination run too wild, I indulge my national security fantasies. I pine for
a commander in chief who knows personally the stomach-turning fear of what
could befall a loved one deployed in harm’s way, one who treats our veterans as
heroes instead of denigrating them as “suckers” and “losers.”
I imagine allies who allow themselves
to trust and respect us again. Adversaries who know they cannot influence an
American president with flattery, lucrative deals or election assistance. A
White House that upholds our national interests and consistently promotes
democracy and human rights — from Xinjiang to Saudi Arabia to Venezuela.
The United States would return to the
Paris Agreement on climate change and the World Health Organization, as we seek
to reinvigorate international institutions, because we understand that many of
the most pressing global challenges can be tackled only through effective
collective action.
Then, I check myself. Soothing as it
may be to disappear briefly into my own dreams, I’m inevitably smacked by the
inescapable realities of this year from hell. Still, I remember that what may
seem like elusive hopes are no more than the reasonable expectations of a
deserving public.
In his Oval Office, President Barack
Obama had a large carpet with a border inscription: “The arc of the moral
universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Those words, said often by the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., serve as an apt reminder that history is not
linear. While progress may ultimately prevail, it comes in fits and starts with
severe setbacks. Indeed, our dreams may never become our reality.
Yet in my experience, work matters; no
one will do the hard bending but you and me. Progress doesn’t happen
automatically. Together, we must drive it.
Surely, we can make 2021 a whole lot
better — if we all vote.