The rhetoric pitted against 2020, though valid, reverberated so consistently that it convinced some of us that 2021 will somehow be better, it won’t.
It was only a year ago that we saw the near beginning of a nuclear war, it wasn’t much later until we lost the late great Kobe Bryant—all the while Australia’s barren land was continuously being scorched—until, ultimately, the infamous COVID-19 virus took flame. George Floyd was mercilessly murdered by law enforcement in May, corresponding Black Lives Matter protests erupted in June and disgraceful police brutality responded. A contentious election exhausted our political landscape while claims of election fraud were frivolously thrown. And there were murder hornets.
It was challenging for me to summarize those events within the confines of a paragraph; I surely missed vital details. Part joke, part truth—2020 sucked. Alas, I find it bewildering that people have convinced themselves 2021 will be any better. It seems they believe the ball drop brings more than a technical date change.
Unwittingly, these problems still exist. They will today. And tomorrow. And the next. Believing otherwise is ignorance. Believing otherwise is being complicit in the face of the oppressor. Believing otherwise stops the perpetual motion of change. Believing otherwise prevents progress.
Most of the reasons the previously listed issues occurred have yet to be addressed. The storming of the Capitol Building presented an unprecedented attack on our democracy, there has yet to be any significant police reform (not to mention Breonna Taylor’s murderers have not been arrested), Congress was only able to pass two measly stimulus packages in the span of ten months, foreign affairs has seen no improvement and the global climate crisis continues to destroy environments.
It is okay to look at the horizon with hope. To visualize a light at the end of tunnel. Truth is, there is and always has been that light. It felt like we almost went backwards last year, but now we must go forward. That being said, going forward will not feel like a walk in the park. It will not feel like 2021 is sunshine and rainbows. We will take two steps forward and one step back. Over and over again.
Moving into a new presidency, we must look back on our mistakes. We must ask ourselves difficult questions, have hard conversations and make tough decisions. If we don’t, the events of 2020 will reverberate tenfold, and we will be trapped in an endless scheme of problem-solution politics.
I don’t mean to sound pessimistic. I’m actually quite enthralled to write this column. Candidly, we made it. We made it through the most tumultuous presidency America has ever seen and we are sort of making it through a pandemic. Sort of. However, I don’t want us to be blinded by faithless hope. Earth’s annual revolution does not bring great societal change, we do.
So, maybe 2021 will be better than 2020. But it is up to us. One thing I know for sure is it will not happen by coincidence; it will not happen by luck and it will not happen with our eyes closed. We have all the power to change things we hated in 2020, let’s exercise that.
Carter Kolpitcke can be reached at [email protected].