I wrote earlier tonight that Joe Biden officially took over the Presidency 18 hours early, when he presided over a memorial for the more than 400,000 victims to the coronavirus. And that wasn’t just hyperbole.
If you saw the memorial live on television, and didn’t have a tear in your eye, you have no soul. For starters, as it should have been, it was mercifully free of political posturing or gobblygook. The ceremony took place in front of the reflecting pool on the national mall. It was simple, heartfelt, and moving. If you saw it live, you know what I mean. If you didn’t go Google it up on you tube.
The Archbishop of Washington led off with a solemn, heartfelt prayer. He was followed by Vice President Elect Kamala Harris, who gave a short set of remarks. She then introduced a suburban Detroit nurse, who went viral for having the habit of singing Amazing Grace on her Covid ward to soothe the patients and her co-workers. She sang it beautifully. Then President elect Biden made brief, soothing remarks, and ordered the 400 lights lining the reflecting pool lit up, 1 for each 1000 people lost. And while they grieved, a gospel singer sang Hallelujah.
That was it. It was simple, it was heartfelt, and it was chicken soup for the soul. I honestly cannot imagine a Covid survivor, or the loved one of a victim, that didn’t have a lump in their throat, and tears in their eyes after seeing it. I personally don’t know, or have lost anyone to Covid, and I was reduced to tears.
But here’s the really important thing. Biden doesn’t assume the Presidency until noon Eastern tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter, he still managed to nationalize the ceremony! In New York, the Empire State Building was lit in special colors. In Milwaukee, downtown lit up with memorial lighting. In Miami, motorcycle cops lined up their bikes, and turned on their flashers. In Las Vegas, the Strip hotels lilt up coordinated memorial lighting. And in other cities, church bells rang out in honor of the lost.
Goddamn! Where has this been for the last year?!? It wasn’t that hard. Biden doesn’t even control the government yet, and still he managed to create a moving, emotional, cathartic, healing moment for the nation out of whole cloth! It didn’t really take all that much. All it took was one national leader who actually gave a shit about the country!
For the last four years, Donald Trump has been nothing more or less than a deranged, abusive father. And as a result, no matter how bad it got, and no matter how much it hurt, the nation had no choice but to keep it inside, and tough it out, because the penalty for weakness would be an even worse beating.
So tomorrow, when I see Air Force One lift off from Joint Base Andrews for the last time with the loathsome cargo of Traitor Tot on board, you can bet your ass I’ll be dancing a traditional Irish jig, and flipping double barrel birds at the television. And I am so looking forward to being able to cover a kind, compassionate man, who actually thinks about others instead of himself behind the Resolute desk. It never should have come to this in the first place.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like to check out President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange . They comprise a pretty much daily report from the front of the 2016 GOP primaries, as well as the general election
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
Yes. This. Thank you.
More than welcome…
I wonder if anyone has told him that onceAir Force One drops him in Florida it will return back home without him – the days of the USAF being Trump Private Airlines are OVER and all the clan will have to start paying for their own transportation (well they’ll probebly get a free rideto Riker’s Island, Leavenworth or wherever and free accomodation for some time)
Thank you for putting this into words. I cried too. It was just so nice to see someone with compassion and empathy at the helm.
I didn’t even see it, and your article made me cry. See, you’re moving on already. Glad you’re making sure he’s getting on that plane!
Thabnki you so much!!! If my words had that effe t, then I accomplished my goal…
I’ll be joining you in flipping a double-bird at Trump as he exits DC but unlike you I won’t have Teri or someone like her to make me behave. Which means in addition to flipping that double bird at the TV I’ll turn around and moon that sucker for good measure. And also let my inner jarhead vocabulary loose for as colorful a set of insults one might ever hear directed at Trump. Again, I without having a Teri that would smack me upside the head I can fully cut loose. I’ll toss in a few not at all fit for polite gals to hear insults on your behalf. Teri can’t smack me upside the head all the way from Vegas can she?
M’Man!!! lol
Please God let the healing now begin. So much pain for the past 4+ years…
Yesterday was a crack in the wall of emotions that we have all been holding in for sanity sake. Even the MSNBC hosts were sniffing and tearing up. Honoring those that passed – finally. Some will bounce back quickly. Others (me for sure) it will take time to detoxify from the trauma 45 causes.
It was a beautiful event. Not in watching it, but in reading your piece I was thinking about what is right emotionally with Biden that is so wrong with Trump. It made me think about the Pixar movie Inside Out, which is about a young girl’s personified emotions as she goes through a childhood event. The movie actually delves deeply into psychology and science, and does it pretty accurately. In the climax, the emotion Joy realizes that there are times that she needs to let Sadness be in control…that it’s good to be sat at times. This create’s the protagonist’s first melancholy memory, one that is both sad over what’s she’s lost but happy over what she had. That is a defining moment for humans in starting the transitioning out of childhood. Trump is…um…there’s something wrong with him. He didn’t want us to experience the sadness of our loss because he doesn’t understand that is the road to being happy again. He was holding the nation in an emotionally stunted place. Biden understands that we can’t move forward without grieving, and that it’s good and right to be sad over what we’ve lost…and that it will eventually allow us to feel happy to have known those we knew who are gone.
Thanks…And what is best about Biden to MY mind is his authenticity…The GOP is ging to have trouble countering that…
The bell has just tolled on one hour left. It is a defining moment in American history. If mankind is around in a thousand years, much of the last four years will be forgotten, but this moment will be remembered. Will it be remembered well, or not? Will things get better, or not? That is now out of the hands of the vile and odious man called Donald Trump, and up to the rest of us.
The great American project of democracy and equality marches forward, bruised, but not defeated. In the words of our better angels and our better president, there’s is nothing we cannot do together, may god bless America, and may god protect our troops.
It is a new day.