The future is ours!

There is plenty to depress me on a daily basis.  But then, I tell myself the same thing that I often tell students in my classes: Look at the trajectory, and we will see that life has only gotten better.  However true that is, it is not easy to overlook the unpleasantness that we run into day in and day out.

I am not referring to the unpleasantness of things mundane, but--and especially--about issues that are political that then translate into everyday life.  It is disheartening, for instance, that 63 million voters have enabled a sociopath to turn this country into a banana republic.  They have ensured that our policies will not empathize with the "wretched refuse of your teeming shore."  It is a long list.

And then there is the trajectory.  The moral arc of the universe that MLK believed bends towards justice.

And what an evidence of that arc is Pete Buttigieg!

A gay married man continues in the Democratic primaries even as many other wannabes have quit the race altogether.  The person that I favored the most has long been gone.  Buttigieg is still in the race.

While other high-altitude candidates such as Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris followed an Icarus-like trajectory, Buttigieg kept flying above the tree line. ...
Butigieg has been in the upper ranks of the Democratic contenders for so long that we forget how unprecedented his ascent has been.

Indeed!

In the days ahead, Buttigieg will face a series of tests that approximate the pressures of the presidency.
Can he come across as a compelling presence in two debates within six days (the other is in Charleston, South Carolina, next Tuesday)? Did he build a political organization from scratch that can stand the rigors of the 3 March Super Tuesday primaries in 14 states? And will he continue to keep a cool head as the campaign inevitably grows ugly?

Against the well-funded Bernie campaign, the cash-drained Buttigieg will have a tough time ahead.

Whatever happens from here (and only the foolhardy would dare to predict), Buttigieg has made history with his campaign. And maybe the greatest accomplishment of this former South Bend mayor has been the seeming ease with which he has done it.

Whatever happens, we will look back at his candidacy and appreciate the trajectory that made it possible for a gay man, who openly and proudly kisses his husband in the public, to be a plausible candidate for the presidency.  The 63 million, who gloat over their short-term scorched-earth victory, cannot bend this moral arc to their will how much ever they try.