VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: What Will Historians Make of Our Annus Horribilis?
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, President-elect Joe Biden will eventually take office. And Donald Trump will leave it.
No one disputes that the 2020 campaign and election were abnormal. Whether they were unfair or illegitimate will likely be readjudicated in the 2022 midterm and 2024 presidential elections. By then, the people will have had time to digest the bizarre events of the annus horribilis — and with their votes make the necessary compensations.
For all of America’s troubles, the world abroad was worse. China eerily bragged that it reacted best to its own virus — even as its global popularity crashed. Europe did little better in combatting the pandemic and saw its economy in even worse shape.
More importantly, as the year ended, there was a patch of blue sky amid the storm clouds.
The Middle East may be on the verge of a historic recalibrated peace. The world is now pushing back against Chinese mercantilism. The southern border is mostly secure. The flood of illegal immigration has ebbed to a trickle. The strategies that sparked a three-year economic boom need only be reapplied in 2021.
Amid death and destruction, perhaps one day historians will conclude that what could not kill off America in 2020 only made it stronger.
As coronavirus vaccines roll out, it will be fascinating to watch which crises the Biden administration manufactures, to generate the left’s all-important moral equivalent of war mindset.