Even now

You might think after the Electoral College has finally, officially settled who won the election, I could breathe a sigh of relief.

You might think that with all the courts — including the Supreme Court, the one packed by Trump just for this possibility — throwing out every single lawsuit, I could breathe a sigh of relief.

You would be wrong.

Even now, I can’t relax.

On January 6, Congress will meet for the final final say; what’s up with all this? The election results don’t seem definitive. The Electoral College results don’t seem definitive. Look at this story in The New York Times: “Can Congress Overturn the Electoral College Results? Probably Not.”

Probably?

Because you know that Trump and his spineless supporters on Capitol Hill will continue to whine that the election was a fraud, that it was stolen from them. This is a person — I won’t even dignify calling him a man — who has never had a real hardship in his life. No one has ever said “no” to him that he couldn’t get rid of with a snap of his fingers.

Now there are reports that Trump may not return to the White House after the holidays at Mar-A-Lago and that he might not attend Biden’s inauguration. What a spoilsport.

You know, in a way, I shouldn’t get my blood pressure up of every instance of #whatstupidthingdidTurmpdotoday, because he often changes his mind, his spokespeople trying to pass it off with the “I was only kidding” gambit. It’s exhausting.

Also exhausting: the other Republicans who refuse to acknowledge what has transpired. I don’t care what their reasoning is. One of the phrases I’m tired of hearing over the past four years is “He’s playing to an audience of one.” How did these people get this far in life without encountering bad news? How did these people get elected? Actually, forget the latter question since we know there are millions of people in the country who harbor racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and misogynistic sentiments, so that explains a lot.

Sure, it’s hard to lose. No one likes it. But it’s time for him and his “ReTrumplicans” to accept and try to undo a lot of the damage that’s been done.

Note: In the few hours since I started this entry, Sen. Mitch McConnell, one of Trump’s staunchest allies, has congratulated Biden. About time. So does this really mean it’s over? Will Trump finally stop his demented attempts to have the election overturned? I wouldn’t bet on it.

At this rate, I don’t even know if I’ll be comfortable until the Inauguration. If even then.

Apparently it’s not just me who’s worrying

(Naturally I meant to post this earlier. The best laid plans….)

Of course not. That would be narcissistic.

In the Nov. 21 New York Times Week in Review, columnist Frank Bruni admits that, he, too was worried. About Trump. But in a different way.

In short, Bruni posits the question, “What do we do now?” What do we do once Trump is out of office? He has sucked so much collective oxygen out the room, how will we fill that void? Where do we put our anger and rage? Is Trump that scab we pick at, keeping the wound fresh? Because that scab will linger long after he’s no longer in the Oval Office. Is it just me or other than patting himself on the back for the stock market and paying golf, Trump is spending every waking moment trying to make life difficult for the new administration?

And remember, the suffering isn’t over. It’s not as if our lives will be carefree now with Trump’s impending departure (and I won’t be comfortable until that actually happens). We still have the #*&^$(%@&* pandemic to deal with.

Let us not bother looking back at how things might have been different if he acted, oh, I don’t know, presidential and looked for a way to minimize the problem, rather than denying there was one and then looking to blame everyone from China to governors and mayors who wanted to keep their citizens safe when it was evident that there was one. (Wouldn’t it be great not to have the additional drama of all these unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud? But, of course, Trump would never go quietly, something he’d been telegraphing for months, if not years.)

One day….one day.