Imagine, if you will...

     ...at how close we came to an actual 4th Reich.

     At one end, we had an aging centrist Democrat who despises liberal and progressive ideas even moreso than he does right wing policies. Joe Biden is renowned for his myth of bipartisan collegiality in "the world's greatest deliberative body." Biden may not have been your pick (he certainly wasn't mine) but the crooked Democrat establishment foisted him off on us and, with our monolithic two party system that's been all but enshrined into the Constitution as settled law, Biden, like Clinton before him, became our only viable alternative to Trump.

    

    That would be the other guy standing, or leaning, at the crimson end of the spectrum, the Camptocormia Commandant. This is a guy who is so demented and so crooked that he literally can't even stand up straight or walk down a 3 degree incline without taking baby steps.

     Polls taken by Morning Consult and Quinnipiac in 2017 and 2018, respectively, of nearly 3000 voters had already judged Trump to be the worst post-WWII president, a case that diminishes only if you factor in the fact that Donald Trump, through Russian interference and right wing electoral fraud (Nearly 8,000,000 voters and votes were simply thrown out and not counted, with millions tossed off the voter rolls for no valid reason, with Detroit alone seeing a sudden loss of 55,000 mostly African American votes, thereby ensuring a 10,000 vote "victory" for Trump in Michigan) was never actually, legally elected.

     Yet, four years later, this shambling homunculus, this ersatz president, the first in American history to embrace neo Nazism, neo confederates and white supremacists and to avoid doing one meaningful thing to combat a pandemic that has thus far killed 274,000 Americans, according to the latest figures (We'd lost nearly 3000 Americans yesterday alone, equal to a 9/11.) could've gotten reelected or, had it not been by a landslide, could've successfully contested the election.

     He is a self-absorbed, narcissistic sociopath who immediately turns on even his staunchest supporters the nanosecond he perceives he doesn't get adequate support from them (Gov. Brian Kemp can tell you all about that). He is a fascist monster who never should've been allowed to get his tiny hands on the levers of power.

     And yet, despite four years of the sledgehammering of our democracy, an orgy of deregulation that has polluted our nation, the installation of right wing hacks in Cabinet and lifelong judicial positions, the single-minded and childishly malicious reversal of virtually anything decent, necessary and good that was enacted by the previous administration and the 20,000+ lies spewed from Trump's maw...

     ...74,000,000 people said at the polls, "More! Four more years!"

     That's 11,000,000 more votes than he got in 2016.

     Republican voters came out in droves in an election that produced the highest turnout percentage since 1900 (65.4%). What Team Trump didn't count on was that 80,000,000+ would come out for the other guy. It was panic voting at its worst, and best. Over 80 million people were terrified of another four years of Trump's shit show and over 74 million were terrified they'd be deprived of an umber glorified bleacher bum "owning the libs" in the WH for another four years.

     That means, not factoring in the slight bump in the population in the last four years, if Biden had received as many votes as Clinton had in 2016, he would've gotten crushed by 9,000,000 votes and, likely, in the Electoral College.

     But 80,000,000+ of us wanted to live. 80,000,000+ of us wanted our democracy, our national integrity (or what's left of it), our most cherished institutions to endure. It took the raw, overwhelming  power of 80,000,000 voters who were rightly horrified of Donald Trump so much, in turnout percentages not seen in 120 years, that they voted for an incipiently senile, Social Security-hating centrist such as Joe Biden.

     And since November 7th, when Pennsylvania, hence the election itself, was called for President-elect Biden, Donald Trump has been putting on a neverending road show as to how close we came, thisclose, to ensuring for another four years.

     Imagine, if you will, breaking up with a bad boyfriend. He verbally insulted you whenever he didn't feel he was getting enough out of you. He never showed the slightest shred of empathy for you or your problems. He spent all your money and constantly demanded more. He failed to take care of you when you got sick and thought all your friends and family were "disgusting." He went out of his way to insult them at family gatherings and always left early after barely participating.

     After four years, you decided you wanted out. He's gotten louder and more sour as the days progress. You magnanimously give him two and a half months to get out (Like the old bartender trope goes, "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here.") before you call the cops. he demands more and more money, says you broke up with him for specious reasons, accuses you of fraud, infidelity, sics his lawyers on you to keep from getting evicted. he shows not the slightest interest in repairing much less tending to the relationship yet still demands he be kept in it.

     This is what Donald Trump is showing us- We're seeing the very worst in him (or, maybe not) in the last 48 days of his tenancy. He's busting up your furniture, turning on his old friends for not turning on you sufficiently. He's the ultimate nightmare of the bad ex boyfriend. This is what we escaped: Four more years of abusive, self-centered behavior. And it took a massive force of will to make it happen.

     Let's be clear about this: Our electoral system almost didn't work. Our democracy almost failed us but we wouldn't let it for the simple reason that we hadn't failed it. Donald Trump never thought that we'd break up with him and he's practically clinging to the door jamb with his short fingers as the cops are trying to drag him out.

     You have another four years of him hiding in your bushes, calling and texting you, trying to reach out on social media. He will simultaneously stalk you, try to effect a reconciliation in four years while still demanding your money. But every day, he will serve as a stark reminder that what you had done these past four years was to sleep with someone who was palpably and obviously the enemy to everything you, your parents and grandparents cherished the most.

     You ceased being both victim and volunteer.