At this time last year, things were looking up. Covid Vaccines are coming online with the economy on a solid upward trend. The erratic Trump is on his way out, and the dull but middle-of-the-road Biden is taking over. A nation on house arrest is about to get sprung. Hopes for a great 2021 abound.

It Didn’t turn out that way. Rather than being a moderate, Biden proved to be a Bernie Sanders clone. Worse, the Biden Administration is proving to be one of most inept, giving Buchanan a run for his money in less than a year.  

Biden is making Trump look capable with the war on fossil fuels and trillions in unnecessary spending, giving us the worse inflation in decades, a border crisis, and a disastrous Afghan pullout encouraging our enemies.

Trump’s Project Warp Speed was already putting a million Covid shots in arms and accelerating when Biden took over. By taking an infusion and quickly recovering, Trump showed the worth of monoclonal antibodies in preventing terrible outcomes. Trump left vaccines and treatments promising control of the pandemic. We now have disarray on the Covid front. 

After this year’s results, one has to stretch to find reasons to be hopeful in ’22. Inflation continuing and hostilities threatened in Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Middle East engenders more fear than cheer. With everybody accenting the negative, I don’t need to echo their concerns.

We again appear to be on the verge of gaining control of the pandemic. The vast majority are vaccinated, naturally immune, or both—two effective pills OK’d promising to keep people out of the hospital and alive. Those who test positive get a prescription within five days, and the chances of anything serious are mostly evaporating.  

Unfortunately, though warned, the administration failed to anticipate faster-spreading variations. The result will be months into 2022 before we’ll have the widespread distribution of rapid tests and new therapies. Many will die because this administration didn’t think and act at “Warp Speed.”

Dr. Fauci’s government effort again failed the nation. We have never been up to speed on testing. Giving Therapies short shrift marks this administration. Monoclonal Antibody treatments developed under Trump languished until Florida Governor Ron De Santis made them widely available in his state. Merck’s just OK’d drug been available in the U.K. for over a month. Flumaxavin, an antidepressant safely used for years, shows great promise against Covid. Ontario, Canada, among others, is already using it while we have just begun testing.

Almost from the beginning, I’ve said Dr. Fsuci was out of his depth, yet here he is on ABC as the administration’s Covoid guru. His presence signals the administration’s incompetence is likely to continue through the new year. If the Afghan disaster, the border crisis, inflation, and dismal covid actions haven’t prompted any administration replacements, the ineptitude will continue. Maybe a massive defeat in the mid-terms will finally cause the administration to change, but that would be at yearend.

The re-election of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis might change the political landscape. Unlike so many potential Republican presidential candidates, Trump didn’t crush him. Since Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, the most capable governor, stands up for his actions even better than Trump. Understanding the issues and studying the data leads DeSantis to the right policies.  

While Trump might steamroll others, the young, bright, and unbreakable governor could beat Trump. After seeing what old age did to Biden, Republicans could look to someone young and robust. Fearing defeat, Trump could decide not to risk his legacy by running.

In turn, this could move the Democrats to look for a younger candidate. At the moment, no capable, youthful candidate is apparent. The Democrats will have to look for a real dark horse.

On a brighter note, not as fast as possible, we will control Covid by the end of ’22. Given possibly less deadly variants, vaccines, and therapeutics, even the Biden Bunch can’t prevent better outcomes. In fact, January might prove to be a top out in deaths and hospitalizations.

Biden may even make changes before the midterms, given his dismal polls numbers. Dumping Dr. Fauci for a medical policy expert would signal a more agile and aware private industry-government cooperation. 

 Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain exchanged for someone willing to remove the bubble around the president and provide him with broader views that prevent the kind of avoidable errors we’ve experienced so far.

 In any case, midterms will mean some changes. It’s hard to do much worse than Democrats controlling the presidency and congress have done, so change is likely for the better.

One has to have some optimism to go on with life. Next, I’ll take a shot at ’22 beyond our borders.