Back and Forth with The Back Row Manifesto

As you might imagine, us left-leaning bloggers all hang out, wearing our silk smoking jackets and puffing on pipes while swirling snifters of brandy, discussing Marcuse, and listening to Gang of Four. (Secret handshake optional.)

Among that club, one of my very great friends, Tom Hall, writes the trenchant blog The Back Row Manifesto. Last week in his post “Trauma” (January 19), he called for a public acknowledgment of our shared national trauma, writing:

The battle for how we remember, process, understand, and overcome the trauma of Trumpism will define how we triumph over it. The first and most crucial step in the formalization of post-traumatic collective memory is to invest in transparency and truth.

No truer words.

That call also included a critique of Biden on that point:

Transparency begins with Joe Biden, and yet his calls for unity and the focus on his agenda has frustratingly ignored the lingering impact of the trauma of the Trumpist years. Biden has laughed off Trump and ignored every ridiculous indignity, instead focusing on building his own transition process with seriousness and determination…..I’m not sure he understands how deeply the nation has been injured. We need to be heard, to be understood, and to share in the validation and legitimization of our…