1/ Having come this close to losing our democracy, millions of more people now realize how important it is that we have one - however imperfect and bedraggled it is.
We had slavery but then we had Abolition; we had the institutionalized suppression of women but then we had the Women’s Suffrage movement; we had segregation but then we had the Civil Rights movement. We’ve been awful before, and we’re going to fix it just like our ancestors did.
This must be a first: ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN will all have women journalists as their chief White House correspondents with the incoming Biden administration.
We didn’t go over the cliff. Clearly we’re still only inches away from it, but for me that doesn’t take away a sense of relief that at least we get another chance.
This is one of those nights when you can feel your emotions shared by millions of other people. Together we endured a trauma and avoided a calamity. Relief, gratitude and love are in the air.
2/
And now to conceive and show the world what your children en-masse really are,
(For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en-masse really are?)”
— Walt Whitman,
“Leaves of Grass”
1/
“LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA
Long, too long America,
Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learned from joys and prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from cries of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,