I’ve hinted before that “move forward” is the equivalent of gaslighting. Let me explain what I mean.

With (I hope) the best of intentions, President Biden said, and chose to model, that he would not be like Trump. He would not distract from the national emergency that was COVID. He would be laser focused on the pandemic, the economy, and the people. And in so doing he told the American people that they didn’t see what they saw. “We won’t besmirch the Office of the Presidency by partisan retribution.”

No! America didn’t see the racism, misogyny, homophobia, and gaslighting of the 2016 and 2020 campaigns. They didn’t see an actual insurrection in pursuit of overturning a lawful and (almost) fair election. They didn’t see armed men and women, bused to DC by the President’s closest supporters, that the President could incite to insurrection. No, Capitol Police did NOT die at the hands of the mob.

And over Biden’s presidency the American people returned to what had troubled them during Trump’s first term, and that Trump already made worse - “table top issues.” These included stifled wage growth, continuing hardship from COVID, rapid increases in prices, primary and secondary school disruption, and more. And throughout those four years was a steady drumbeat of outrage, conspiracy theory, lawsuits about stolen elections, racism, that continued to divide the country.

[I’m armchair quarterbacking here]

What Biden should have done, and I hope the next Democratic President will do (if we can actually have that election) is to establish an American version of Mandela’s “Truth and Reconciliation” Commission. It should lay out the crimes of the prior Administration, naming persons and their major financial backers. It should hear testimony of those who were directly injured by the crimes: Civil Servants, University researchers, persons with HIV, Transgender, Persons with disabilities, LGBTQ, Persons of color, persons illegally deported, and more.

MAGA, or that portion of the base that believes Trump is their god-given savior, have to understand that their vision of a White, Male, Christian supremacy has no place in Democracy as we understand it. We have to include the results of that Truth and Reconciliation process in every Civics and History text book from Grammar School on up, until the MAGA virus has faded away.