It has been a long four years, and 2020 has felt the lengthiest of all. There was a repudiation of the Trump Republican Party a couple years ago with the blue wave that swept the U.S. House of Representatives. After an absolutely dismal performance dealing with a still raging pandemic, this general election will not be close as long as people vote, and they have been in record numbers thus far. I expect a steamrolling that will be clear by Wednesday or Thursday. (Later than usual because of the complications around voting and COVID-19.) There is no election to contest when it’s not close. The president will throw tantrums, but after a couple weeks no one will be listening anymore, and he will be lucky if any sycophants in Congress help load his U-Haul trucks in January. We’ll have to hope he doesn’t burn down the house on his way out, but I expect a lot of unpleasantness as the transition between administrations gets underway.

For weeks the internal polls that the public doesn’t see have been bad for Republicans. Wall Street has been incensed by this president, pouring massive money into the Joe Biden campaign, desperately hoping for a return to predictability. Small donor money has flowed in consequential amounts to unseat vulnerable senators who have tied themselves to Trump, and while winning the Senate is not a given, Democrats have an excellent chance of doing so. The blatant hypocrisy that Republicans barely tried to rationalize in order to push through a Supreme Court nomination a week before the election, on top of a pitiful response to COVID-19, has infuriated a sizeable swath of the electorate. So has the tepid response to actually governing. For years the GOP has spent most of its time packing the courts, which has only required brute force. They make an excellent living at taxpayer expense for doing so little.

The president didn’t drain the swamp; he built a sewer. But, we’re on the eve of Election Day 2020. The bill is due, and this is one he can’t skip out on. There is a stiff price for the ineptitude, perfidy, self-dealing, and abysmal job performance of Trump. The GOP had numerous chances to be heroic and reign in this empty vessel of a human being but refused to do so with little more than a whimper and a shrug. We can send them home, too. The opportunity to get this country off the schneid is here. An opportunity to end this perversity at home and return to the world stage as a leader among nations, rather than a country to be pitied. This won’t happen overnight. It will take years to repair the damage this president and his ilk inflicted on the United States. But we take that first step now. Enough. Vote.