Victor Davis Hanson: 5 Pieces of Good News at the End of 2020 Boxes containing the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are prepared to be shipped at the McKesson distribution center in Olive Branch, Mississippi, on Dec. 20, 2020. (Paul Sancya - Pool / AFP via Getty Images)
By Victor Davis Hanson
Published December 30, 2020 at 6:02am
The year 2020 is now commonly dubbed the annus horribilis — “the horrible year.” The last 10 months certainly have been awful.
But then so was 1968, when both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The Tet Offensive escalated the Vietnam War and tore America apart. Race and anti-war riots rocked our major cities. Protesters fought with police at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. A new influenza virus, H3N2 (the “Hong Kong flu”), killed some 100,000 Americans.
But an even worse 2020 saw the COVID-19 outbreak reach global pandemic proportions by March. Chinese officials misled the world about the origins of the disease — without apologies.
Authorities here in the U.S. were sometimes contradictory in declaring quarantines either effective or superfluous. Masks were discouraged and then mandated. Researchers initially did not know how exactly the virus spread, only that it could be lethal to those over 65 or with comorbidities.
Initial forecasts of 1 million to 2 million Americans dying from the virus unduly panicked the population. But earlier assurances that the death toll wouldn’t reach 100,000 falsely reassured them.
By April, a historic, booming economy was in an abrupt recession. Much of the country went into quarantine on the theory of “flattening the curve” of infection for three to four weeks. Instead, weeks turned into months. Soon, many people believed that the economic wreckage and emotional damage from the lockdowns would eventually overshadow the toll of the virus itself.
By June, initially peaceful protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis had turned violent in some cities. For much of the summer and into fall, some major cities would see nightly rioting, looting and arson, as antifa and Black Lives Matter hijacked the nation’s outrage over Floyd’s death.
Fear of getting infected, concerns about going broke, anxiety about venturing out during the nightly havoc, frustration over weeks of forced isolation, and exhaustion from a bitter presidential campaign — all of it put Americans into a nasty mood on the eve of an acrimonious election.
The 2020 presidential election proved as revolutionary as the quarantines. The radical transition to unprecedented levels of mail-in balloting tested the ability of state registrars to authenticate and efficiently count ballots, which often did not meet verification standards of past absentee voting. Enormous voter turnout, spiked in part by huge numbers of mail-in ballots, delighted Democrats but helped convince Republicans of massive voter fraud.
After weeks of contention, Donald Trump lost the Electoral College vote. Yet Republicans defied the predictions of experts and won key races in the House and Senate. So pundits argued about whether the left had won by electing Joe Biden or lost by doing dismally in congressional elections. The media, pollsters and the government establishment were mostly gladdened by the Trump loss, even as their overt bias and partisanship permanently tarnished their reputations.
For the first time in American history, given the lockdowns and the cold-weather viral resurgence, there was neither a traditional Thanksgiving nor Christmas for many people.
Yet amid the death, destruction and dissension, history will show that America did not fall apart.
In remarkable fashion, researchers created a viable and safe COVID-19 vaccine in less than a year — a feat earlier described as impossible by experts.
The nation went into recession but avoided the forecasted depression. This was partly because America in early 2020 was booming by historical standards, and partly because the Trump administration and Congress quickly infused some $4 trillion of liquidity into the inert economy.
For all the charges and counter-charges of voter fraud and Trump being a sore loser, presumptive President-elect Joe Biden will eventually take office. And Donald Trump will leave it.
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Poster Comment:
I may have already had the Covid since I was spitting up some phlem. I know I did not have sinus infection since there was no tightness in my face like when I had sinus infection before. The phlem is now gone.
Mike Pence holds the power to NOT accept the votes of Electors from states with disputed vote totals. If there are dueling Electors he may accept those favorable to Trump and throw out the disputed Elector's votes. Pence is under guard now at an undisclosed location. If he fails to appear for the tally of Elector's votes then the duty would fall to that witch Pelousy.