The worst of times, the best of times

The view from K Street finds hope but is still uneasy. There is a strange sense of tension, of problems left to fester, of a future burdened by the past and hobbled by doubt. We are a country weary from disease, shaken by our failure to marshal our vast resources to mount a more effective response. We are a nation riven by disputes, unsure of our ability to find common solutions to shared needs. We are a republic that seems to have changed its motto from “e pluribus unum” to “what’s in it for me?” And as a new administration is being born, the old one clings to the body politic like a hand from the crypt.

The period since the presidential election has revealed our current president as never before: wholly self-absorbed, petulant, vindictive, authoritarian, and utterly disdainful of the foundational democratic principles he has sworn to uphold. His torrent of delusional claims of massive voter fraud, millions of shadow votes, and ballot manipulations from beyond the grave would be merely farcical did they not so profoundly undermine the very process—a change of power brought about by the free and open vote of the people—upon which our government is built.