A Month of a Week

The past six days felt like the country was playing checkers by mail and waiting for the USPS delivery with the next move.

I have not spent so much time in front of the same channel on cable TV in decades. MSNBC staffer Steve Kornacki evolved from a strong presence on election night to the arbiter of my reality by the weekend. I clung to his prediction of Pennsylvania as if it possessed the last remaining source of oxygen. And the grueling process seemed to happen one vote at a time, a version of water torture with a stubborn, cruel faucet.

 

What transpired after Tuesday night until Saturday morning, 11:20-ish EST might be described as a relentless stream of Ground Hog Moments, seemingly every few minutes repeated, almost verbatim.

But what a lesson on how to view votes as they come in. The hosts of MORNING JOE have already lobbied their network in favor of giving Kornacki a raise. Could not agree more.

Various guests helped fill the time with their views on where things stood and were likely headed, as well as, of course, the various legal shots-in-the-dark employed by the Trump campaign to raise doubt and encourage, if not demand, rancor.

Friday afternoon, MSNBC viewers had the great fortune of witnessing an incendiary Steve Schmidt takedown of 45 and total confidence that 46 was about to become reality. Rarely has anyone in an interview been so perfectly on point. Each syllable, each thought so keenly delivered and accurately presented with just the right amount of anger and certainty. 

 

Schmidt spoke for those who saw Trump coming in 2015 and everyone who grew to despise this mendacious nuisance, and now, all of us can gradually get used to the fact that this first wave of Trump nightmare is over. The legal issues that Trump is likely to face once he no longer has his presidential immunity might remove him from politics. That would be a great thing.

Yet, let’s not get ahead of the next two months. There’s still a petulant child in the Oval Office, and no one anticipates a smooth shift from the current administration to the newly elected team. 

Saturday night the first steps of this transition began in a parking lot in Delaware when Kamala Harris and Joe Biden spoke to all Americans.

Harris took the stage first and knocked her speech out of the park, and then some. Massively compelling, insightful, optimistic. Harris is a rising and incendiary force, and her participation, unlike most vice presidents, will be vastly effective, profoundly influential.

Then, for the first time in almost 4 years, a man who will be president spoke about what he was going to do, not what he had accomplished. Biden was energetic, forceful, and like his running mate, equally compelling, insightful, optimistic.

Love emerged on that stage and ushered hate to the sidelines. Hope replaced dread, and most important, clarity cut through what has been a fog of self-absorption, unbridled narcissism and lethal mendacity.

What a month the past week has been. During this COVID-19 phase, how could we have anticipated anything different?