The Damage Done

Today is Inauguration Day. 

The day we make it official and Joe Biden takes the reins as President of the United States with Kamala Harris as Vice President. 

And just as importantly, we can officially and finally pry the levers of the presidency from Donald Trump's sweaty fingers. 

It's tempting to see this moment as transformative, the end of the darkness of fear and division and the beginning of the illumination of hope and unity. 

The reality is that there so much work to be done going forward. 

The damage done to American ideals, to our collective spirit is substantial and will take considerable time and effort to repair. 

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will still need to contend with about 75 million voters who remain convinced their ascendancy to the upper levels of American political power is not legitimate. Donald Trump's persistent fear mongering that the election was rife with fraud and that his rightful victory was stolen from him will continue to cast a dark, cold shadow over the body politic for some time to come. 

President Biden and Vice President Harris will have a lot of cleaning up to do where Trump spent 4 years reversing course on environmental protections, medical coverage and diplomatic relations and more. Before Biden and Harris can move forward anywhere, they will have to spend some time going back to fix everything Trump broke. 

Today is an important day, the beginning of a new direction for America. But today in and of itself is not transformative. The transformation of America from broken to better will take more than a day. 

It will take a long time to fix the damage done.