Looking through our archives, it’s easy to find times when life was tough in America. The year 2020 was probably among the top five worst in modern history — not just for the United States but for the world — due to the coronavirus pandemic. We’ll leave the task of ranking bad years to historians.

For now, let’s look back at the Dec. 31, 1952 issue of the Enterprise, as the editor looked toward a new year. Just like in 2021, the country faced a new president of a different party in 1953. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower took over for Democrat Harry S. Truman in the White House. In 2021, it’s Democrat Joe Biden taking over for Republican Donald Trump.

The editorial — “Our history in 1953” — reads much like the one we’d write today. It talks about the challenges facing the nation, the uncertainty of a new president and rational expectations for change. In 2016, the media and national leaders did the same thing, asking the public to give Trump — a television star rather than a politician — a chance. A similar sentiment was given toward Eisenhower after his 1952 election.

“The United States need not resolve to be different in 1953. For the first time since 1933, its affairs will be in the hands of another political party. A new team is taking over, with a new outlook.

“What Americans can resolve is to give this team a fair chance to show what it can do. General Eisenhower was handed a mandate to invoke change. But in this rugged world, change cannot necessarily be wrought overnight.

“The Korean war, inflation, communism in government, federal economy, all the issues that seemed to resist solution under the Democratic administration, will not now with sudden magic yield to easy answers.

“The party in power has had years to grapple with these problems, years to examine the catalog of alternatives. The Eisenhower administration is not going to solve them all in the space of one to six months.

“The people voted for action and fresh thinking and have a right to expect these things. But in their eagerness for solutions, they must still realize the improbability of miracles.

“Success, if it comes, will come slowly. New administrators need time to earn their way, time to cut away the deadwood of past government habit. Complexity is the great common denominator of today’s problems. New policy is not born quickly out of such a wilderness of difficulties.

“American, then, must be patient with their new leaders. …”

The editorial continues for five paragraphs, but the message is clear. This week, we have the same message to Americans as the Biden administration takes office on Jan. 20: Be patient.

The new presidential team has a huge task ahead battling the pandemic. The health aspect of this crisis is daunting enough, never mind the economic and social upheaval that resulted. And that’s just one problem.

Biden is also faced with rebuilding all that Trump has dismantled over the past four years, starting with rejoining the Paris climate accord. That in itself is a full-time job.

There is no shortage of work to be done in Biden’s White House. But don’t expect that our nation’s problems — or the pandemic — will be fixed overnight. It will take years.

Our wish for the new year is that Americans will be better off on Dec. 31, 2021 than they are today.

Happy new year.