First, I’d like to thank the deity of my choice that the election, except for the shouting, is over.

The shouting, on the other hand, is in full swing and full throat. Supporters of Kamala Harris, (D – Tiananmen Square), have proceeded to caterwaul in a manner quite impressive. Some of them, of the distaff side of the equation, have taken to shaving their heads and are swearing off men. I applaud their efforts and pledge to reciprocate. Of course, I’ve been balding for a couple of decades and never had the inclination to engage with men, but support is support.

Indeed, let the crazy flow through you. Put your real selves out there so that the voting population, or at least fifty one percent of them, can feel even better about their choices.

Stay strong and celibate, sisters!

Panning out to a wider view of the map, world leaders, some of whom smiled broadly after the 2020 election, either because they wanted Trump out of the picture or because they knew they’d get a better deal from Biden, are now having to hold what must be some rather awkward phone calls with the once and future president.

Most awkward, I imagine, are conversations between Ukrainian president Zelensky and Mr. Trump. Hey, you come to the United States at the end of a hotly contested election and campaign for one side, you’d better be prepared to eat some crow with Louisiana hot sauce when the other side wins. Look for whatever deal Trump ties to get to end the Russia-Ukraine War to not include a lot of nice-to-haves for the Ukrainians.

Switching to the Middle East, Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to be quite pleased with the election results. Reports are that the calls between him and the president-elect have been cordial. I look for whatever fetters the Biden administration has placed upon Israel’s reaction to the October 7 massacres to fall away after the inauguration.

As for Iran. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tehran pours the coal to their efforts to develop atomic weapons. Trump is almost certain to reinstate every bit of sanctions he can once he’s back in power, so getting the bomb before he gets back into office is likely somewhere near the top of their agenda.

Perhaps those last two will intercept somewhere between “Iran does something ignorant” and “Israel makes sure Iran does not have the capability to do something ignorant.” Iran may be able to cobble together a bomb, but it won’t do them much good if their oil export infrastructure is a smoking ruin that they have neither the expertise nor the money to reconstruct.

I really can’t comment on the China-Taiwan situation. It was never my area to learn about, so I’ll refrain from making any pronouncements. I just hope that Beijing doesn’t cash in on their investment before Biden leaves office.

Speaking of Biden leaving office, an odd thought occurred to me. I fully expect the Democrats to do everything they can to throw sand into the gears for the next couple of months in order to make Trump’s life as hard as they can. In addition to the usual new regulations and executive orders they can fight with him from beyond the electoral grave when he tries to rescind them, I expect they’ll get creative. I could see blanket pardons for administration flunkies in our near future, assuming they want to admit that they might be necessary to protect their future phony baloney jobs. Perhaps the Federal Reserve, which dropped interest rates just in time for the election, will reverse their decision and bring them back up high enough to drag the economy into recession just as Trump takes office.

Biden, or whoever has their hand working his mouth these days, could also commit the United States to one or more conflicts. I could see a large contingent of Americans entering Ukraine for ‘support’ purposes, or perhaps naval and air assets being rushed to the Persian Gulf. Biden could even orchestrate a crisis in Korea or the Philippines just to give Trump one thorny issue or another to deal with in his first 100 days.

What better way to punish the rubes and garbage that threw you out of power than to ruin their economy and send their sons and daughters halfway around the world to fight someone else’s war?

Finally, and this jumps right over that ‘conspiracy theory’ line, I could see the Democrats removing Biden from office at the last minute. That would put Kamala Harris into the Oval Office and into the history books as the first female president. Empty, meaningless gestures are the bread and butter of the Democrat party, so this would just be an extreme example of what they’ve been doing for the last decade or so.

Anyway, buckle up. Inauguration Day may kick off the quadrennial protest season, but the next few months are going to be just as ‘fun’ to watch.

Like a lot of people, even some of those in his own party, I was never happy about Joe Biden being President.

I was just a tad too young to vote in 1988, but I vividly remember how big an ass he was during his failed bid for the nomination that year. Hey, if you can’t lie and steal ideas in such a way that it takes at least a little effort to catch you, you should have the grace to commit political seppeku to expatiate your guilt.

Obviously, the Senator from Delaware didn’t have that sort of fortitude, because we’re still dealing with him.

I watched as Biden showed just how big an ass he could be a few years later during the Senate hearings confirming Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. The good Senator’s snide insinuations, insults, and denigration of the nominee’s character should have meant that no proud American of African descent would ever vote for him, much less any American with an ounce of decency.

And yet, here we are.

While I’m just cynical enough to admit that there are vanishingly few politicians as clean as the driven snow, Joe Biden has the reek of decades worth of dishonesty, vice, and graft wafting from his personage. The fact that he has been as corrupt as he is, for as long as he has been, leads one to realize that no amount of debauchery and debasement will ever suffice to get a sitting member of the Senate ejected. That is, of course, if the Senator in question makes sure to voice the right platitudes, vote the right way, and have the right dirt on the right people.

To be honest, when Biden announced that he would not be seeking the presidency in 2016, I thought we would hear the last of him after the inauguration the following year. He’d become a footnote in some history book somewhere while the stain his career brought to our society would be papered over with the stains of the next generation of slime mold accomplishments of those who came after him.

But, in their infinite wisdom, for the 2020 election the Democrats decided to pull Biden out of cold storage, fill him to the gills with what was likely a historic level of pharmaceuticals, and pull out all the stops to install him in the White House.

Since then, we’ve been treated to a view of an old man’s decline from being a washed-up excuse for a Washington swamp dweller to a used-up shell of a human being. Part of me actually pities him as he is pushed out into the spotlight by his harridan of a wife and the usual gang of idiots to mouth some rehearsed lines, answer some pre-ordained questions, and try to get off the stage without tumbling in front of the cameras.

Yes, folks slow down as they get older. Maybe he can be productive for a few hours every day, but the presidency isn’t that kind of job. Biden has to be able to be a decisive leader at any time, day or night. He has to be able to provide direction, sometimes in a chaotic situation, without any preparation.

And he has to be able to do it today, tomorrow, and every single day from now until noon on January 20, 2025. As bad as his condition is now, he has to be able to perform for another seven months. If he should win reelection, he has to be able to do it for almost another five years.

Joe Biden, now more than ever, is not that kind of President.

Go watch a Biden interview or press conference from 2019, then watch last week’s debate. You’ll see the impact the last five years have had on the man. Regardless of what you think of Joe Biden or his politics, do you think he’s going to crawl out of that hole and be good enough to do the job until 2029?

I see several possibilities for the next few months –

1. Biden stays in office and continues his candidacy.

It would cost them, but the Democrats may go with this just to keep from admitting that they’ve been exploiting a senior citizen for half a decade. They may even see something honorable about dancing with the one they dragged to the party.

I don’t see any way that Biden could pull off a win as Trump’s polling numbers start to consistently show a lead that exceeds the margin of cheat. Assuming that Trump still draws breath on Election Day, he is likely to beat Joe Biden.

2. Biden withdraws voluntarily

If you’re waiting for Joe Biden to do the honorable thing and bow out, don’t hold your breath. He would likely have to resign from the Oval Office for ‘health reasons’ as well. It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but I would be more surprised to read about this in the news than I would if the headlines proclaimed that the Pope had registered as a Republican.

3. Biden is removed from office and the candidacy

This one is tricky. Maybe the President passes away peacefully in his sleep, as people with his years and condition are known to do. I don’t wish death on President Biden, but it is well within the realm of possibility that Kamala Harris becomes President, and the Democrats have a clear lane to putting a new name on the ballot.

More likely, I think, would be for Mrs. Harris and the Cabinet to remove Mr. Biden from office through the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. I’m sure some way to word their declaration could be found that deflects charges that they’ve covered up for the President’s decline for years, and Joe Biden is put out to pasture. Maybe they’ll even give Mrs. Biden some of what they’ve been dosing the President with so that she’ll go quietly too.

As the clock ticks down to the convention and the election, I see Mr. Biden being removed from office as more and more likely.

But if Biden isn’t on the ballot, what happens with the election?

First, I think, the Democrats would sigh in relief and nominate someone else. Perhaps it would be an orderly, carefully orchestrated process, done in a spirit of collegiality and willingness to forego personal ambition for the good of the nation. However, I don’t think the disparate wings of the party will go for that.

In normal times, Kamala Harris would be the presumptive substitute for her boss. If Biden dies or is removed from office, she becomes President and can use what little success the Biden administration has had as reasons for her own election. She’d certainly get at least some portion of the African American vote, as well as support from those who would reflexively vote for any female just so they could say they did. Perhaps she could get a few piercings, color her hair, and declare herself an ambisexual, left-handed, countercultural foxself to appeal to younger voters who would otherwise listen to ugly rumors of her incompetence.

California governor Gavin Newsom is also a possibility as a replacement. He has executive experience, looks relatively good on camera when ordering dinner at a fancy restaurant, and can safely declare that he accelerated the decline of California into the failed state that he wants to transform the entire country into. He could hold the Golden State up as a shining example of the future under a Newsom dynasty.

There are other non-player candidates that could be put on stage to wave for the cameras and parrot whatever pablum the poobahs of the proletariat want them to. Governor Whitmer of Michigan comes to mind for this role. Hillary Clinton could be reanimated, but she was past her prime in 2016. The intervening eight years have not been good to her. Outside of their core supporters, however, I don’t see much enthusiasm for them or anyone like them. It’s just too late in the election season to (re)introduce someone and get momentum moving.

I don’t think any of these folks could beat Trump.

To me, the wild card is Michelle Obama. Now, she’s never done a day of public service that I know of, she’s never been elected to anything, and she has no history of leadership in the private sector. She’s known for being the wife of a former president, and not much else.

But she has that Obama name, and she has her husband to campaign for her. Love him or hate him, Barack Obama gives an excellent stump speech. The moment she announces a candidacy, you will hear his voice on every news station and political YouTube channel. The DNC and the progressive side of the Democrat party would line up behind her, and the full might of the information and entertainment industries would sing her praises to the masses.

Mrs. Obama would probably have both the black and woman vote, reversing the inroads that Trump has made with those groups. She could point to her husband’s legacy and promise a return to that, gaining her the nostalgia-for-mediocrity vote. Without even the scant political resume her husband had when he ran in 2008, she would be the perfect blank slate upon which voters could project whatever they wanted. Whether or not she would be the perfect marionette for the people who have been pulling Biden’s strings would remain to be seen.

In the face of that, could Trump win? That, I can’t predict. It would be at least as hard a fight as 2016, and I believe even he was surprised he won then.

No matter what, we are moving through uncharted political territory. These are the sort of days that get written about in history books, and I’ve read enough history to know that most folks who live through such times don’t enjoy them.

Buckle up, brothers and sisters. This is going to be a bumpy ride.