It’s done. Thanks to the Great State of Pennsylvania, Joseph R Biden is the president-elect of the United States of America, and Kamala Harris will be the first woman and the first person of color to become vice president. (And, I predict, the 47th president after Biden! That’s right, folks, you read it here first, right here on Simple Tricks and Nonsense!)

Donald J Trump is finished. He hasn’t accepted it, of course. He’s raging petulantly on Twitter that no, in fact, he won. He did, he did, he did! He won! Bad things happened… illegal votes (whatever the hell those are!), stolen election! He WON! Classy to the end, Don. But it doesn’t matter. Whether he can pull it together enough to walk out of the White House on January 20 with a modicum of dignity or will need to be carried out by men with butterfly nets, his time is done. I’m seeing videos of cheering throngs in New York and San Francisco. The mayor of Paris has tweeted “Welcome back, America,” and I’ve seen reports that church bells are ringing in Munich. I remember a lot of jubilation when Obama won, and Bill Clinton before him, but this… this feels different, doesn’t it? It feels something like I imagine V-E day must have. Maybe because we know, on some level, that we dodged the same authoritarian horror that was put to rest that day.

I’m not going to gloat, though, or let the celebrating get too far out of hand. For one thing, like I wrote the other day, I know that the next few years are going to be an uphill battle for President Biden to get anything of substance done. And Trump is still going to be around for two more months and who knows what kind of rat-fuckery he might get up to in that time? He will, without a doubt, call for recounts or attempt some kind of lawsuit. I don’t believe either of those efforts will change anything… but at the very least, the rhetoric is going to be brutal for the next couple months. I hope he doesn’t try anything crazier than those last-ditch gambits. Maybe someone should consider taking the Nuclear Football away from him?

But that’s something to think about later, perhaps. For now, I’m going to leave with this clip of CNN correspondent Van Jones. I think he says everything that needs to be said on this historic morning. This morning isn’t a victory so much as a relief for a hell of a lot of people. As bad as the last four years have been for me, they’ve been a genuine nightmare for people of color, immigrants, homosexuals… basically anyone not-white and male. I raise my glass to you people. You’re still here. You made it. We all made it.