POLITICS
2021: The Year of Trauma
This year was rough and next year will be rough too. Don’t give up.
Over 800,000 Americans are dead from a global health pandemic. Twenty-five percent of the American population still refuses to be vaccinated. A violent attempt to overthrow the government left five people dead. A once-in-a-century fire season. A once-in-a-century tornado outbreak. Mass shootings on the rise. Over 400 voter suppression laws on the books. Book burning is back. Republican members of Congress openly threatening violence against their Democratic colleagues is now the norm.
This is America at the end of 2021.
We are a nation amid a very real existential crisis. Following the carnage that was collectively experienced in 2020, from the health pandemic to a racial reckoning, many of us wanted to believe that following the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris we could take a deep breath and turn our attention back to the mundanity of daily life. We were assured that we wouldn’t have to frantically check Twitter to make sure Trump hadn’t tweeted us into war or launched nukes via nastygram. We had faith that with a resounding rebuke of his presidency through our votes, the message would be clear: American authoritarianism is not welcomed or wanted here.
