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I was born two days before 1950 ended and we're all taking our baby steps the first day of 2021. We don't know our individual fates, but we know that in 19 days the democratic dictator Donald Trump will no longer be president although we fear that anything could go wrong; we have not heard the Fat Lady sing. We won't hear her until she belts out the National Anthem January 20th when Joe Biden has been sworn into office. We sports aficionados have seen sure victories snatched from us with no time on the clock; therefore, we take nothing for granted and we will continue to assail this despot until the final gun. This competitive cretin is intent on stealing the election.

In five days Congress will meet to certify Biden's victory. I'm not certain about the nefarious tactics Trump will employ; his strategies to defy the will of the American people have failed in the courts thus far as a result of his incompetence, but he believes in miracles similar to the miracle that was going to make COVID disappear. I am sadly optimistic that he will realize his goal of 400,000 fatalities by the time he leaves office. We are at 350,000 today. He doesn't talk much about his success story anymore. Biden asserts that Trump has surrendered. Trump recognizes that he has failed. In a few days he is going to realize that he is no longer president. I will not be weeping for him, let alone the 81 million Americans who tarred-and-feathered him at the polls. 

Is Trump the worst president in the history of the United States? There are millions who would promptly cry, "Yes!" But mediocrity in our highest office has been the rule rather than the exception, From the late 1830s until Abraham Lincoln, we had a parade of forgettable figures beginning with Martin Van Buren and succeeded by William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachery Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. None of them served a second term and they could never find a solution to the growing animosity between the North and the South that culminated in the Civil War. Some critics might question my reason for leaving James Polk off this list. A one-term president himself, he promoted the Mexican-American War and negotiated with the British, which culminated in the country expanding to the Pacific Ocean as well as to the Mexican and Canadian borders.

After Lincoln's assassination, we had an even longer interregnum of individuals who did not distinguish themselves. Beginning in 1865 with Andrew Johnson, who barely escaped impeachment, we endured Ulysses Grant, whose reputation as a great general was diminished by his corrupt performance as a president, as well as a parade of anonymous figureheads including Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison and William McKinley. With the assassination of McKinley in 1901, Teddy Roosevelt assumed the presidency for the next eight years and he imbued the White House with the swagger it deserved.

But mediocrity returned during the Roaring Twenties with this trio of no-names: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Their lack of leadership and ignorance of economic policy paved the way for the Great Depression. Trump's fanatics could argue that their cult hero was less mediocre than these lackluster footnotes to history, but their defenders might counter that Trump's mishandling of both the pandemic and the economy inflicted much more harm on the nation than any of them did.

My dad was five years old when Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president and was serving in the Navy during WWII when FDR died. Harry Truman took over and was in office when I was born. My father had a deep affection and admiration and spoke highly of Truman's honor and resolve throughout the years. "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" was an oft-repeated mantra by my father.

I was a child during the eight years under Dwight Eisenhower. I never heard my parents speak an unkind word about him. My father's military experience filled him with a respect for the victorious general even though he was a Republican. The country was beginning to prosper and a smiling Ike whom everyone liked created this mythical America that is the one Trump was going to make great again.

John F. Kennedy for an Irish Catholic family, was akin to rooting for Notre Dame. If you weren't a Fightin' Irish fan, you didn't dare step into my father's house. We embraced Kennedy with a religious fervor that transcended our reverence for the pope. Similar to my dad's generation who remember the exact place they were standing or sitting when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the baby-boom generation recall their circumstances with the same vivid detail when JFK was shot.

Lyndon Baines Johnson may have done more for the African-Americans since Lincoln--Trump calls himself the true heir to Lincoln except his abject racism undercuts this hypocritical image he foolishly endeavors to promote--was not a sympathetic figure to us. Nobody was in favor of the Vietnam War and none of us middle-class white boys had any desire to die for nothing. 

It was Tricky Dick in our household. After losing to Kennedy and then the California governor's race, Richard Nixon told us we wouldn't have him to kick around anymore. Little did we know that we would be kicking him out of office in 1974. Those were my college years and we had no love for Nixon because we were mired in Vietnam. Gerald Ford came out of the bullpen to relieve and pardon his predecessor, but the electorate jerked him after one inning and gave the ball to Jimmy Carter. Carter lacked a fastball. He may reign as the finest ex-president ever; he and his dignified wife have devoted the last 40 years of their lives dedicating themselves to unstinting charitable work. There will be no purgatory for this pair. They will follow the Virgin Mary and ascend straight to heaven.

I was 30 when Ronald Reagan became president, my late thirties when George H. W. Bush accepted the baton, my early forties when Bill Clinton charmed the men as well as the women for eight years, turned 50 when George W. Bush rode his Texas good ol' boy charisma into D.C. for two terms and 60 at the time Barack Obama registered his momentous triumph. They had their successes and failures. I never disliked Reagan or the Bushes. I found Clinton a refreshing change and enthusiastically supported Obama. Despite their differences, they shared one thing in common: Trump could never carry any of their jock straps.

I have had the pleasure of voting twice against Trump. I cannot say that he is the worst president of the 45, but he is without a doubt the most evil person who has occupied the Oval Office. If Nixon was a crook, he was a rank amateur compared to the mafioso Trump. If Nixon's crimes can be compared to cheating on one's wife, then Trump is a rapist. If Lucifer conceived a child with a whore, the offspring would be an altar boy compared to Trump. Trump is a bad person. Very bad. He has spent his whole life exploiting others for the sole benefit of himself and his family and his friends. 

When Biden becomes the 46th president of our nation that we love with unquestionable loyalty, he will  inherit a tragic mess. Not since the 1918 Spanish Flu have we suffered such sickness. Not since the Great Depression have we suffered such poverty. As contagious as COVID is, nothing or nobody has infected us with so much anger and hate as Trump has. Like a cornered rat with his bubonic ego, he still insists that he is the Big Cheese. In 2016 democracy was a steppingstone. In 2020, or 2021 to be more precise, democracy is an obstacle. 

I can visualize the Berlin Wall falling as an expression of freedom. I can picture the statue of Saddam Hussein falling as the toppling of a dictatorship. Our obstacle to democracy falls on January 20th. Freedom survives. The dictator flees into exile. Since he has never known any peace except the pieces he had paid thousands to bed, he will find no peace because goodness eludes him. He will be on the run every day for the rest of his life as the law and the historians pursue him relentlessly. 

There are Germans today who insist that Hitler was not evil. There are Russians today who insist that Stalin was not evil. These individuals are a testament to man's innate stupidity. More than 74 million Americans affirmed on November 3rd that Trump was not evil. We have seen the enemy and he is us. Trump, the evil genius, saw the divide and conquered. Only a truly evil man can see in the dark. Trump lit the match and engulfed us in a conflagration that our democracy has allowed us to partly extinguish because the fire will continue to rage. 

From enslaving the African-Americans to exterminating the Native Americans for starters, evil has had a home in our nation. Inspired by the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, we have defeated Trump without lifting a finger and allowing him to destroy himself. Evil consumes itself. Trump slinks toward the desert where his bones will whiten in a hellish sun.