As Gerald Ford once said, “Our long national nightmare is over”.

After 4 years of enduring our democracy and its institutions being under attack, both internally and externally, the past week has been inspiring to watch our system working, not only in the processes of voting in record numbers, whether by mail or in person, but in the minutia of actually counting the ballots. We observed Republican and Democratic poll workers working amicably side by side accurately tabulating millions of ballots, then accurately reporting that count to the public without any back room shenanigans. Our democratic system worked as it should and a new president, with a new vision, was elected.

Hopefully Mr. Trump will follow the example of 44 previous presidents and exit the White House with dignity and graciousness. After 4 years of divisiveness, lies and self-dealing Mr. Trump has an opportunity to show a different side and, perhaps, leave a positive legacy. Millions of Americans are suffering from the middle class economic collapse and more than 1,000 Americans are dying every day as the direct result of a failure to deal with the Corona Virus. President Trump has the ability to implement programs to deal with both problems. Hopefully he will have the decency.

If Mr. Trump chooses instead to throw a two month temper tantrum while following through on threats to fire those public servants who opposed him, issuing more nonsensical executive orders, issuing pardons to his friends who betrayed their country, etc. that will only validate the argument that he never possessed the patriotism, intellectual acuity or moral capacity to have been elected president in the first place.

Mr. Biden has pledged to be the president of all Americans – those who voted for him and those who voted against him. His record as a man of decency and honesty suggests that he’ll make every effort to do that, but we need to watch and to hold him to that promise. If he succeeds, we’ll all – blue and red – be better off. Whether you prefer the right wing or the left wing, they are both part of the same bird.

Roy Miller,

Pocatello