By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have been extolling the virtues of President-elect Biden’s mission to bring the nation together, to restore our “national soul.”

There was a time when I thought Joe Biden was up to the task, no matter its difficulty. I am now having second thoughts.

Why? Because the man he defeated on Nov. 3 is sowing some incredibly deeply planted seeds of mistrust in the democratic system that defeated him for re-election.

If Donald Trump had any sense of shame within his overfed body, he might heed the calls to dial it all back. He doesn’t. Instead, he continues to sow those seeds that are being scarfed up by the moronic base of supporters who actually  believe the lies he tells.

What’s more, we now hear from one of Trump’s lawyers saying that a man whom Trump fired should be “drawn and quartered and shot” because he declared the presidential election was the most secure in history.

The lawyer is Joseph DiGenova. The individual he wants executed is Christopher Krebs, whom Trump hired to protect the nation’s electoral system against corruption. Krebs did his job, except that his declaration flies in the face of Trump’s narrative, which is that the election is “rigged,” and that the presidency was “stolen” by millions of illegal voters.

This is a sample of the headwinds that confront President-elect Biden as he prepares to assume the nation’s highest office.

And this is an example of how the nation’s soul is in serious disrepair. I won’t say that Trump has destroyed our national soul. He clearly has inflicted grievous damage on it. He is doing so even as the clock ticks away the final weeks of his disastrous term as president.

President-elect Biden faced a difficult job even under better circumstances. I pray his pledge to unify the nation isn’t crossing the threshold of impossibility.