Last Thursday President Biden, standing at a lectern at the White House, spoke to the nation. Here is some of what he said:

“Look, do you know what we have to do … ? Tell the truth. Follow the science. Work together. Put your trust and faith in our government to fill its most important function, which is: protect the American people. No function is more important. We need to remember the government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital ….”

“Last summer I was in Philadelphia, and I met a small-business owner, a woman. I asked her, I said, ‘What do you need most?’ I’ll never forget what she said to me. She said, looking me in the eye, she said, ‘I just want the truth. The truth. Just tell me the truth.’ Think of it. My fellow Americans, you’re owed nothing less than the truth.”

“It’s never, ever, a good bet to bet against the American people.”

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Actually, the president’s complete first sentence above was “Look, do you know what we have to do to beat this virus?”

The address was about the virus. The virus dominates the news and many people’s consciousness in the United States and elsewhere. It is effectively erasing much of what has gone before, the way the Trump presidency did before it ended, with a big push from the virus.

— Mark Channing Miller