I have good news and bad news. First the bad (always start with the bad so you end on an up note): New Year’s Eve is delayed three weeks.
The good news: It will be worth the wait.
You see, it would be premature to celebrate the dawn of 2021 with President Petulant still in office.
And sure, there’s still a non-zero chance Donald Trump will declare martial law or fumble the nuclear football before Joe Biden is sworn into office January 20.
But should the Founding Fathers, the Constitution and Reason win the day, there are several reasons to expect ’21 is going to be a rocking year, despite the pall that still hangs in the American air:
- We will cure a pandemic.
In less than a calendar year, we had two vaccines ready for injection to battle COVID-19. Yes, the death toll will reach staggering numbers in the U.S. alone. And we would have turned the corner faster if we’d had a president who believed in science.
But if the world can join forces to create a pandemic vaccine this quickly, what can humankind not accomplish?
- Donald Trump will get his ass evicted from office.
It’s hard to overstate how therapeutic this will be for our collective conscience, for this simple reason: Donald Trump hates America.
I invite you to scour Google, YouTube and FOX News to find a compilation of clips of Trump touting America. Now look up any American issue: voting, the post office, The Cold War, equal rights, etc. You will find innumerable dung heaps where Trump shit on the flag.
My mother was a first-grade teacher once stymied by a student, Senator Scott (his real name), who told my mom he wanted to get in trouble. She knows: It takes one student to disrupt an entire class.
We had a Senator Scott as president. Had.
- We will beat diabetes.
The closest thing to a working pancreas for the 34.2 million Americans with diabetes, the first tubeless automated insulin delivery system will be released in the first part of the year. The Omnipod pairs with glucose monitor to keep blood sugar levels within the healthy range by delivering necessary insulin automatically, with settings that can be adjusted via a smartphone. Users with type 1 diabetes who use insulin daily (the real kind) will be approved first, followed later by approvals for those with type 2 diabetes.
- The climate will improve.
In July, the European Union’s ban on single use plastic items is set to go into effect. (Although the United Kingdom is leaving the E.U., it plans to implement a similar ban in October.) While industry groups have asked for delays, the E.U. so far says it will stick to the deadline. The idea is to halt the use of a lot of the throw-away goods that have a way of ultimately winding up in the world’s oceans, among them: disposable plastic cutlery, plates, straws and coffee stirrers, polystyrene cups and food containers and cotton swabs made with plastic. The ban doesn’t include plastic bottles, but the E.U. has separately set tough collection and recycling requirements for those.
In addition, carbon emissions are expected to approach World War II levels. While pandemic lockdowns were behind most of the greenhouse rebound, Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, notes: “We at least know it’s possible.”
- Higher ground will expand.
In 2021, recreational marijuana sales becomes legal in four more states: Montana and New Jersey (January), Arizona (March/April) and South Dakota (July). These states will thereby join their brothers and sisters in Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
- 2020 will be over!
A
This memory brightens o’er the past,
As when the sun, concealed
Behind some cloud that near us hangs
Shines on a distant field. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
