What a year, what a mess
Looking back at the stories that shaped 2020
Seldom is the biggest story of the year as painfully obvious as it was in 2020. Not since Watergate simmered and then raged for two years in the 1970s has any one problem plagued America like the insidious spread of COVID-19.
Perhaps a third of the population continues to underestimate the disease, killer of more than 344,000 Americans in 2020. Disbelievers call the disease a hoax or say its dangers are overblown.
But even more people took COVID-19 seriously. They reshaped the country by voting in an election with record turnout.
President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid by a wide margin after downplaying COVID-19 and failing to craft a coherent national strategy to blunt the disease.
After first saying the disease was under control, Trump shifted his position. He called himself a wartime president fighting the invisible enemy of COVID-19.
Trump held lengthy televised briefings about his administration’s work in checking the disease. He bragged about the ratings, but this was no reality show with a tidy outcome after a few episodes.
The president soon tired of downbeat forecasts by health professionals and the sagging economy. He spoke of churches being filled with worshipers on Easter Sunday, as though a pandemic could be stopped with words instead of action.
Governors were left to set a course for their states in the novel coronavirus pandemic. A patchwork of rules followed, as Republican-led states tended to be less restrictive than those with Democratic governors.
Infections rose. Many governors continued or invoked stay-at-home orders as COVID-19 patients filled intensive care units and makeshift morgues became a necessity in parts of the country.
Trump turned to Twitter to deliver his responses, notable only for their absence of logic. The president on an April morning turned his attention to swing states important to his chances of winning a second term.
“Liberate Minnesota!” he typed to begin his series of tweets. “Liberate Michigan!” And then, “Liberate Virginia, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It’s under siege.”
If Trump wouldn’t commit to a plan to protect the public health, he could try to divert the public’s attention with insinuations about firearms being taken from law-abiding people.
Trump’s worst days of his campaign against Democrat Joe Biden occurred in October. Trump was hospitalized, and his staff announced he had contracted COVID-19.
The president received extraordinary treatment, including an unapproved antibody “cocktail.” His critics asked why such measures were necessary for a president who had claimed 99 percent of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.”
In New Mexico, COVID-19 also put a government executive in a pressure cooker.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, declared a health emergency that shuttered many businesses. She received criticism for allowing big chain stores to stay open while smaller shops had to close.
Lawsuits against the governor followed. They fizzled in the state Supreme Court.
A faction continued calling Lujan Grisham a dictator. Praise arrived from others who said she had put public health ahead of every competing concern.
State Sen. Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, was among the governor’s earliest critics. He advocated plenty of hand-washing but no restrictions on businesses.
“If we put this in perspective, many more people get sick and die from the seasonal flu in our state every year than have contracted COVID-19 in the entire United States,” Sharer said in March, an assessment that aged poorly.
In early months of the pandemic, Sharer’s San Juan County and neighboring McKinley County led the state in infections. A partial reason was the region included the Navajo Nation, where many people don’t have running water. Hand-washing wasn’t a simple remedy for COVID-19, despite Sharer’s pronouncements.
New Mexico had 142,864 cases of COVID19 as of Thursday. A total of 2,477 state residents have died after contracting COVID-19, according to the state Department of Health.
The election finally arrived. Trump lost New Mexico early on and then the country. Networks called New Mexico for Biden as soon as the polls closed. Biden carried the state by almost 11 percentage points, or 100,000 votes.
The presidential race was tighter in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. As counting concluded in battleground states, Biden won the presidency.
Trump’s low ratings in much of New Mexico helped Democrats maintain their domination of the state Legislature. Democrats also won three of the four congressional races in New Mexico.
The breakthrough winner for Republicans was Yvette Herrell, who ousted freshman Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small in Southern New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District. The 2nd District was the only region where Trump was strong.
With Biden bound for the White House, he selected Congresswoman Deb Haaland of Albuquerque to be interior secretary.
A member of Laguna Pueblo, Haaland would be the first person of first Native American descent to lead a Cabinet department. Her appointment is subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
No Santa Fe city elections occurred in 2020, but there was plenty of political infighting and one violent demonstration.
Lawbreakers destroyed the 152-year-old obelisk on the Santa Fe Plaza after city police ceded the area to a mob.
Better to retreat than risk a confrontation that might turn violent, Mayor Alan Webber said. He sidestepped the fact that police lost any chance of keeping the peace when they abandoned the Plaza.
Webber’s police department also lost more evidence, including a case that involved the rape of a child. The mayor blamed a now-retired police sergeant. The sergeant said he did his job correctly, only to have Webber try to make him a scapegoat.
Police failures weren’t the only big crime stories.
In Santa Fe County, a 16-year-old gunman was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of basketball star Fedonta “JB” White. Witnesses said an argument at a party escalated to violence.
White, 18, was a graduate of Santa Fe High School and a prized recruit of the University of New Mexico’s basketball program. In a state that produces few Division I basketball players, White approached celebrity status.
Less is known about the defendant, Estevan Montoya.
Why was a 16-year-old packing a pistol at a party in the predawn hours during a pandemic? Where were his parents? Who staged the party that ended in tragedy?
The question that can’t be answered is what White might have become had he lived. He was one more casualty of 2020, the year of COVID-19 and death.