America, I'm so happy for you

I saw a picture today of Dr Biden delivering baskets of chocolate chip cookies made at the White House to the National Guard still in DC, as a thank you for their service and protection during the inauguration, and I just couldn't help but think, "This is how it's meant to be. It's nice to be back to this." People who care and respect our people in uniform and do nice things (or have nice things done) for them. Not mock them, call them stupid, put their noses up at them, and tell them to use someone else's bathroom.

I am happy for us, too.

And shell-shocked, and grieving, and absolutely enraged about the last four years.

Things will not go back to normal, and they shouldn't.

Yep, by my calculations we've moved up to second worst English-speaking country, thanks to how fash and transphobic the UK is at the moment. The US came really close to full on nightmare from which there is no waking.

I stood on the roof of my building Wednesday morning and saw Trump's helicopter fly to Andrews. Filled with rage and anger at the man, and sadness for all the harm he's done to individuals, institutions, our country and others. His airborne "victory lap" or whatever around the city as if he ever cared about it infuriated me. I got a picture, but it's just a dot above the horizon. Good riddance. It seemed real, but it didn't.

It didn't feel real seeing three former and one soon-to-be presidents as well as one former, one soon-not-to-be, and one soon-to-be vice-presidents gave me a glimpse of how things should be. I will forever remember those oaths, as well as watching Biden enter the White House and Harris entering the EEOB in their new jobs for the first time.

Watching Biden pick up the pen to sign the first three executive orders on Wednesday night, I thought "Finally we have someone who knows what his signature on that document means." THAT'S when it started to feel real.

Yes, we have a long road ahead, and the honeymoon is going to be short. I'm already noticing more cautionary and critical op-eds even on Washington Post, Politico, and other outfits that were merciless to Trump. A lot is expected, and I think people are going to be harsh when progress is not as fast or complete as they had hoped. But we still have the hope, which we didn't have before.

[I usually try to avoid cheap shots, but the city feels totally different without the orange fog hanging over it]

It feels different here, too.

As you say, Good riddance.

It's going to be long struggle ahead but at least you have a President who knows what he's doing.

We're sort of in a nightmare hangover stage, as when you wake up from a terrifying dream with a dry mouth and pounding heart, and it takes a few minutes to register that you haven't just been diagnosed with an incurable and fatal disease (or are not about to be eaten by a monster).

I will say it's nice waking up in the morning and not having that prickling dread when I check the morning's news and wonder what inane, surrealistically horrible thing "he" has done since the last time I checked. It's also nice not having that low-grade anxiety that Trump and his flunkies would find a sympathetic judge or official somewhere and find a way, if not to overturn the election, at least gum things up indefinitely.

Our system was robust enough to survive an incompetent, narcissistic egoist with authoritarian aspirations. Enough sane Americans were still able to vote and did so in a "good" breakdown of states, and our checks and balances and a conservative judiciary that is nonetheless not (yet) willing to toss our Democracy under the bus stopped Trump's and his allies' crude attempts at a coup.

The patient isn't out of danger yet, but at least they are stable for the time being. I do hope this has left more Americans with the skills to spot the next would-be demagogue before they become the nominee of a major party and with a sense of how important voting really is.