Finally, We Have A President Again

Emerging from Shellshock

When I cut this column back to a weekly (Wednesday, do subscribe!), I indicated that on occasion, I would have reason for special offerings. This is one such occasion. Last night, we were reminded what an adult in the Oval Office looks and sounds like. What compassion, empathy, understanding, and maturity look like in a leader. This was not some great speech for the ages, full of memorable rhetoric and worthy of etching into stone. But it was in its own way, what was needed, and in that sense, it was sublime.

I sat out the Trump years. I did not watch him. Not his States of the Union, not his rallies, not his news conferences, not his debates. In fact, it was during the campaign season in 2016 that I switched him off, when it became obvious that he would win the nomination. I muted his name in my Twitter feed. For five years, I purposely ignored him, yet he was still the central feature of my external world and an annoyingly present feature of my internal. It is reasonable to say that I hated everything about Donald Trump. Yes, I suffered from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Two months after he left the Presidency, it occurs to me that Trump Derangement Syndrome was the only mentally healthy approach to the man. Supporting him was at best sociopathic and at worst psychopathic. Ignoring him seems amount to clinical denial.

Yet even the healthy choice of derangement has its cost, and I became aware of those costs last night as I sat utterly transfixed by the tone and tenor of the words coming out of the President’s mouth. “I need you” he said. Over and over. Not you need me. Not you love me. “I need you”. A kindly older gentleman appeared before me and he mainly told the truth (the desire for the Biden Team to denigrate the good work done on the vaccine/distribution strikes me as uncivil, and the “no one believed we’d hit 100 million vaccines in 100 days” schtick is insulting), he asked me to keep thinking about others, he painted a picture of a brighter future, and he was clear in telling me there would be consequences if we didn’t continue to treat the virus seriously.

This wasn’t Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Demosthenes. This was Joe Biden. Joe’s been hanging around my entire adult life in one way or another. I’ve always liked Joe; I’ve mostly disagreed with him. Those disagreements are popping up regularly as his Presidency continues.

But last night, Joe Biden was necessary. It is embarrassing to compare myself to someone who has seen close combat; I haven’t. But I’ve seen dramatizations of “shellshock” from WWI/WWII (and some actual footage of afflicted soldiers). The faraway look. The dead eyes. This is what I’ve felt like inside for five years as I watched a corrupt narcissist divide our country, as I watched people close to me reveal the great darkness inside them, as I wondered whether my country would ever recover from this nightmare. I got my answer last night. We’re gonna be OK.