2020 showed me a number of things that gave me grave concern. And hope.

By JON KOONSMAN

Adios, 2020. I won’t miss you when you’re gone.

You’ve shown me a number of things that give me grave concern about the human race.

And a few that give me hope.

Even as we shuttered the country for ‘15 days to slow the spread,’ I watched my beautiful, vibrant, healthy wife stand in the bathroom holding handfuls of her own hair, ribs showing, her radiant smile given to sadness.

Your virus doesn’t scare me.

I watched my mother suffer unnecessarily for several months even as medical professionals were furloughed and operating rooms sat empty.

Thanks to incredible doctors, both Jenni and Mom are recovering well. Not a single billionaire, politician or tech giant has aided in their recovery.

COVID-19 has proven itself a formidable foe. We watched as it spread across the country. Initial estimates of 2.5-3M deaths in 2020 ultimately proved to be about 1/10th that number.

But we didn’t celebrate or learn from our successes. We pointed fingers, politicized our response, denied any science that didn’t fit our agenda, impugned the motives of anyone with a dissenting opinion and destroyed a thriving economy.

Instead of pulling together we let it divide us.

Shame on us.

When the year began it would have been hard for me to imagine feeling further betrayed by our politicians. But once again I’ve underestimated them.

Many have taken public stances against law and order and our constitution. With the assistance of their tech oligarchs they have suppressed speech and weaponized language.

They’ve destroyed businesses and used billions of our tax dollars to support their own foreign interests while offering us a few hundred dollars of our own money to shut up and take it.

Our ‘leaders’ stood idly by and watched masked mobs destroy billions in property and assault our citizens with impunity. And not only have they refused to denounce the lawlessness - many have endorsed it.

They’ve aided the ‘Woke’ movement - a movement so absurd that in the absence of both victims and perpetrators they’ve been forced to create new grievances - and then appoint themselves protectors against them.

I think it was Nietzsche that claimed government is always a product of our past. Historically that’s been our ‘recent’ past and has proven a functional model. Our leaders understand this idea, and I expect it is by design that we’ve spent the year re-litigating the Civil War in lieu of celebrating our historic advances in Civil Rights and social, educational and economic equality. Nietzsche was right, and our politicians and a complicit media have used it against us.

It was Truman who claimed that ‘we get the government we deserve.’ And Truman was wrong.

We don’t deserve these assholes.

I do have a few things to be especially thankful for this year. Foremost being the good health of my wife and mother.

2020 also spawned a new Thursday night tradition. Every Thursday night I gather with some of the best men I know. We initially started gathering to work our cattle dogs. These days we don’t always show up with our dogs - we gather for the fellowship.

Most of us have been friends for years - some as long as I can remember. Some nights we sip a glass of bourbon and maybe smoke a good cigar. Others we talk philosophy and religion, families, business and our old cowpunchin’ days.

We laugh, cry, cuss, discuss and pick on each other.

And some nights we pray.

At the end of the night we hug each other’s neck and remind each other how important we are to each other’s lives. And I have no doubt that if something were to happen to me, these are the men who would take care of my family.

We are not ‘woke’. We are awake. And I pray 2021 proves an awakening across this country.

I hope it’s different.

Because we are.

So long, 2020. I’ve no desire to re-live you.

But I ain’t scared either.

Y’all love each other.