Well, maybe it’s time to take stock after nearly four years. Let’s see…global pandemic, cities on fire, forty million new unemployed, deep recession if not depression on its way, and the White House has turned out all the lights and pretended no one’s home while our President hides in a bunker.

I can’t say I’m feeling all that confident. Now, I’ll grant you Trump didn’t actually cause most of this. Systemic racism, the ridiculous militarization of the police, a dysfunctional and insanely expensive healthcare system, vast economic inequality, and a polarized society were all in place before he showed up. And yet he has managed, in somewhat less than four years, to make every single one of these problems far worse. I mean, seriously. Did this guy ever see a bad decision he didn’t like? Get rid of our pandemic response team? Cut funding for the WHO in the middle of a global pandemic? Go to court with the DOJ behind him to throw millions of people off health insurance? Confiscate and hoard desperately needed PPE when he wasn’t sending it to China and North Korea? Stoking fear and encouraging violence? Around the world people aren’t looking to the US for leadership now. They’re looking at us with disgust, or worse, pity.

As for Putin, he’s laughing his ass off.

I don’t know. Maybe it had to happen. Across the world, people have been asking why Americans weren’t marching in the streets already. Well, we are now. Late, but better late than never. Most of it is righteous and very justified anger. Some is the usual suspects trying to co-opt and aggravate the situation for their own delusional fantasies of a “white” world, encouraged and abetted by the Enabler-in-Chief. I hope the righteous anger and focus prevails and we come out of this with a clear vision and positive way forward. As I said, I’m not feeling confident. But I can hope. At least I can still do that. Not to mention whatever else is in my power to do.

Just like everyone else.