One year...

...and counting. I realized the other day that it's been a year since I started writing this blog.

My reason for starting this blog was to appeal to the approximately 10% of people who are ideologically in the middle of the road in contrast to the 90% on the extreme right or left who appear not to be amenable to reason. One of the conclusions I drew from Election 2020 is that this situation has not changed; another conclusion, especially from the elections for the Senate seats in Georgia, is the strategy of keeping the middle 10% engaged is valid as ever. Don't get me wrong - I am not claiming to have influenced the course of events in any significant way. But, as a quote from MLK which I recently saw says, "If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way". Be that as it may, I have decided to continue writing "Middle of the Road" and to put in my two cents in these posts as I see fit. A few readers have offered their input from time to time and I have welcomed it since I would like this blog to be a dialogue.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Republican Party censured Cindy McCain and former senator Jeff Flake for refusing to toe the Trump line and Gov. Doug Ducey for instituting emergency measures to fight the pandemic in violation of "personal liberties". Also, Marjorie Greene the newly-elected congresswoman from Georgia announced she would file impeachment charges against President Biden. These and other similar occurences around the country indicate Republican infighting will continue for now and, possibly, till the 2022 election and beyond. What the Republican Party will look like at the end of this process is anybody's guess. Democrats, given their narrow majorities in Congress, will likely have to decide between pursuing their agenda with or without Republican support and the ever-elusive search for a compromise with Republicans. I will be watching the process and waiting to see what emerges.

The other story we should be following is the pandemic and how the arrival of multiple vaccines will affect its course. By the way, if I have not been clear on this issue, let me say that I am in favor of taking the advice of the medical experts and getting vaccinated. The mass-paranoia and suspicion of everything that is prevalent in the population is one of the legacies of Trump. The sooner we snap out of it, the better. As with other aspects of life, there will be no getting through to the anti-vaxxers and other doubters. The benefits of the vaccine outweigh the relatively small risk of complications in a small number of people. I hope middle-of-the-roaders will get vaccinated as the opportunity arises in the interest of their own health and in the interest of public health.