February 14, 2021, Valentine's Day of the Plague Year
There is an interesting question about whether the plague year can be more than twelve months, as clearly, COVID-45 was on our shores by this time a year ago (although I count it from the date in mid-March when most things in New York shut down). But like the reign of terror under now former President Donald J. Trump ("acquitted" for the second time by a complicit Republican senate caucus, although seven Republicans voted to convict him for inciting insurrection), time and space seem more "flexible" than we give them credit for being. IMHO.
And so, COVID-45 is seemingly going into some kind of a decline in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths (although, we are starting from a really high level); a small part of this might be the fact that around 11% of the USA adult population has received at least one of the two required vaccine injections.
Against all of this, we have to note a potential eviction crisis involving potentially tens of millions of households, and of course, millions suffered unemployment. Against this, the Democrats are proposing a $1.9 Trillion COVID-45 relief package (including an ever-shrinking "stimulus check" to an ever shrinking group of Americans, and a $15 minimum wage-- over time). Naturally, Republicans attack it, because with a Democrat in charge, deficits matter again.
I write this on Valentine's Day (aside from wishing a happy Valentine's Day to Mrs. TD and to the Loquacious Pup and to all out there who celebrate it), to make a vaguely "romantic" point: with impeachment (and please God, the 24/7 obsession with Donald Trump) hopefully behind the political classes for a while, maybe the real honeymoon period for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can be permitted to begin now.
We have the same multiple crises we had before the impeachment trial: a population (and an economy) still reeling from COVID-45; a large portion of Americans who now believe that they have license to express their racism and bigotry publicly and violently; looming environmental catastrophe; ever worsening income and wealth inequality, which in turn, disproportionately disfavors people of color (highlighting issues of social and economic justice that have remained unaddressed for four centuries); and a world in which the United States isn't totally in charge of everything as China is economically and militarily on the ascendancy (even as it steps up its own authoritarianism), while still maintaining a nuclear arsenal on a hair-trigger (as do several other nations of various degrees of stability).
I do not envy Joe Biden and his team the tasks in front of them. We have several existential crises facing both this nation and humanity as a whole, and in some sense, especially on the environmental one, we really are running out of time, and "bipartisanship" [with criminals, traitors and climate deniers] will probably result in the end of humanity. But at least we have professionals operating in good-faith, for the first time in a number of years, running our government.
[For the moment, I will just say I am glad that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has disseminated his awesome artisinal Teremana Tequila for broad American consumption; very helpful in getting through this seemingly endless (as in certainly more than twelve months) plague year.]
Maybe on a day devoted to romance (of the idealistic kind), this is the moment to unleash our goodwill and creativity, and can start to restore some kind of a sustainable existence, devoted to justice and love. The Dog can dream, right?