For editorial writers, blinkers, the sort that horses wear to keep them looking straight ahead and not get distracted, would seem out of place. Jon Gabriel prefers to wear his. Today he lays claim to great foresight, predicting in June that 2020 was going to get a lot worse. Pre-Covid political events are flicked off the shoulder like dandruff. The assassination of another country's leader was insignificant. The impeachment was forgettable. The year's social disasters were caused by "malcontents," a euphemism for street protesters, statue breakers, and destroyers of mom and pop shops and restaurants. Even the "chattering classes," another favorite Gabriel euphemism for intellectuals, journalists and democrats, are dismissed as nothing but angry people. The election campaign was boring - people shouting at each other on screens. Trump's attempt to undermine the Post Office was just a "scare." The election result failed to give complete clarity. Biden is Eeyore ... yawn, yawn but Gabriel had predicted everything would get worse, proof of his sound judgement.

Unlike the President elect, however, Gabriel has spotted a light at the end of the gloomy 2020 tunnel - 'Operation Warp Speed'..."a miracle"...he calls it .. well.... not quite. He confuses the speed with which the vaccine was developed with the speed of its delivery, two different processes. The Commanding General actually confessed that there were a few hiccups to delivery of the vaccine and without the previous administration's investment in vaccine R&D after SARS and Ebola... the whole process might have taken a great deal longer.

Gabriel congratulates himself for his sunny eyed optimism by contrast to the dark forebodings of the President-elect. Normalcy will return soon or within six months, he believes. This ignores the prospect of another 100,000 to 200,000 deaths over the next few months because of the Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays and because some people have ignored taking precautions seriously. Our hospitals are near capacity, doctors and medical workers near exhaustion and our economy flatlining without a rescue package. Gabriel calls for a new commitment from us all. His blinkers are working well so, according to him, we should all wear them. Gabriel's optimism ignores that over 300,000 Americans are not "coming out of this year with us" and "won't be tougher or stronger " because they did not survive. The pandemic could have been treated as a pandemic and a disaster for the country in the first place, not a political game of one-upmanship. As in the two years after Pearl Harbor what is required is realism, objectivity, shared sacrifice and knowing what we all need to do to defeat the enemy. We need a Roosevelt willing to tell us the truth, however dark that might be. Optimism is founded on truth not blindness. All of us removing our blinkers might be a first positive step.