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Forget impeachment. Forget the 25th Amendment. Forget all that.

They’re too late, and they don’t matter.

For sure: Donald Trump, the Mango Mussolini, will slink out of town like the carnival huckster that he is. He’s not going to the inauguration, and everyone there will be relieved by that — like when you hear your angry drunk uncle won’t be coming to wreck your wedding.

There’s a week left, give or take, and there’s not enough time — or votes — to impeach and convict. There’s not any chance he’ll be declared unfit under the 25th Amendment, either.

So he’ll be gone, sure.

But Trump is like a bad stain in a good rug: you can’t get the stain out. However much civil society tries to eliminate the stench of his “presidency,” we will fail.

Because Trumpism is here to stay.

Trump and Trumpism — populist, racist, sexist, dishonest — was born in the ashes of the 2008-2009 global economic collapse. Back then, it called itself the Tea Party. It was one of two populist movements that were birthed that year.

The other was Occupy: the group of kids, mostly, who took over city parks, and didn’t have a leader or a bank account or an ad campaign.

The Tea Party and Occupy shared some views: they hated the Davos people who had been running things. They hated the bailouts to bankers and CEOs. They hated the established order.

They differed, however, in this way: Occupy atomized, and fell between the blades of grass in the city parks, never to be seen again. The Tea Party kept going.

It took over the Republican Party, squeezing out horrified New England GOP veterans.

The reality TV star, Donald J. Trump — looking down from his gilded perch on Fifth Avenue — had previously been a Democrat. But he saw the Tea Party putsch, and he saw opportunity. It needed a leader and he would be it.

He had never run for anything before, really. Not seriously. And the grifters in his circle didn’t know how to run a presidential campaign.

But Trump had two things none of his future Republican rivals would have: his “fake news” refrain and his mastery of social media.

Trump wasn’t bright, but he was smart enough to know — like Justin Trudeau, ironically — that traditional media was in trouble. Voters were gravitating in droves to Twitter and Facebook and the like.

That’s where the ratings are, and Trump understands ratings better than most. He shortly became the biggest presence on social media in the world. He would come to not just dominate the agenda: he owned it.

He’d drop a little silver ball on Twitter, and we in the media would chase it. Every. Single. Time.

But when negative stories would start to surface in traditional media, it was inevitable the president-to-be had a solution. It was all “fake news,” he’d say.

Over and over he’d say that, like an incantation, and it would do its magic. “Fake news” was a way to cast doubt on every news story Trump didn’t like.

Mueller probe? Fake news. Russian hacking? Fake news. Lining pockets? Fake news.

It worked, just like the Twitter strategy did. And it inevitably led to 100,000 deranged mouth-breathers storming Capitol Hill, leaving bodies and destruction in their wake.

Impeachment or not, 25th Amendment or not, Trump will soon be gone. And for those who say we’ll never see his like again?

We will, we will.

The beast that Trump aroused is awake, and it is slouching towards Bethlehem, once again.

— Kinsella worked for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign

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He’s been impeached, again. But does it matter? I say in this story that it really doesn’t.

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New tune and vid! By me and @SFHPunks, pandemic style.

(A bit mellow. Apologies. And I put together the video. Apologies for that, too.)

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…what a load of crap. They’re something far, far less. They’re barely a democracy, now.

So, the next time an American tells you they have the greatest democracy in the world show them this.

This is who they are, now.

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It is that time of year when we admit to our failings.

It’s a timely time, too. For example, all over the Caribbean and various sun spots, nervous politicians are sitting on unmade beds in resort rooms, listening to their spouses on the phone as they try and get them a flight back to Canada that lands in the middle of the night. Mistakes, they’ve had a few.

Us, too.

This writer has had enough to meet his 600 words allotment, and then some. To err is human; to confess to them in a nationally-syndicated opinion column is superhuman.

So, herewith and heretofore, here’s some of the whoppers Yours Screwly typed out at the start of the pandemic. There’s some beauts, here.

Ten pessimistic pandemic predictions were done up, and ten optimistic ones.

Two pessimistic ones that were wildly, hilariously wrong were these: “Far-Right leader(s) will attract popular support with anti-capitalist, xenophobic, conspiratorial/evangelical fundamentalist movement(s). Far-Left leader(s) will ascend with anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, possibly anti-Semitic — but secular — movements favouring state control and ownership.”

Neither happened. There’s jerks and fanatics on both sides of the ideological spectrum, to be sure. But they were there before the pandemic, weren’t they?

These two prognostications are so false, so faulty, so flubbed, they aren’t even funny. They’re so big in their stupidity, they have their own weather system: “The economy will largely collapse, but a few will profit from it. People will develop community-based support networks, barter, etc. Certain essential services will simply cease, localized corruption and underground economies will grow, and many will cease paying taxes.”

Yes, Warren went all Mad Max/Planet of the Apes there. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. In my defence, I plead that I had not had my morning tea yet.

More Kinsell-apocalypse: “Wide swaths of urban centres will become unliveable due to collapsing infrastructure/services, homes will be abandoned due to inability to pay mortgages/rent, and many will be obliged to squat or relocate to rural areas.”

To be sure, some folks stopped paying rent and mortgages. But governments largely stepped up to help out. And those who moved to rural areas like mine? They mainly did that because (a) it’s way cheaper and (b) they have a way better internet connection, and can work anywhere.

Not all of my Pithy Prognostications were dramatically, egregiously, hilariously mistaken. Some were almost, sort-of, accurate.

Fer instance: “People will reconsider past views about politicians and institutions, and re-assess.”

And: “People will accept that there is a right and proper role for government, and reject the Trumpian anti-government populist bullshit.”

Full disclosure, as we say: this scribe volunteered for Joe Biden for months, so he was disinclined to cheer on Donald Trump, like, ever. But that prediction came true. Wherever a mid-pandemic election took place — B.C., Saskatchewan, New Brunswick — the incumbents were re-elected. Those governments won because they were activist during the pandemic. They used government as a force for good.

Not so Trump, the Mango Mussolini. He called the coronavirus a hoax, and he asked us to consider getting injected with bleach. He, with the world’s tiniest hands, even mocked the size of Joe Biden’s mask.

He lost, bigly. Being anti-government during a global health crisis is no path to re-election.

Another bit of fortune-telling that didn’t go awry: “People will come together and find a cure for this beast, because so much depends on it.”

And they did, they did. Thousands of folks, all over, volunteered to participate in drug trials that set land-speed records. Incredibly, some Big Pharma companies briefly waived profiteering to find a vaccine. And the aforementioned governments helped pay a lot of the cost.

The result: vaccinations are happening. In Canada — as this writer also predicted, further into the pandemic — the feds dropped the ball on acquiring vaccines. As of this writing, 0.193% of the Canadian population have been vaccinated.

But at least we have vaccines, now. Which recalls another prediction, and one worthy of a columnar conclusion: “People will love each other more deeply, because they are seeing for the first time how quickly life can slip away.”

And it can, and it does. We have lost too many, and we will lose many more.

Be safe, be careful, and have a 2021 that is full of joy, life and good health.

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Here’s my list of public figures, from worst to best, in 2020:

Ranking the worst

1. Justin Trudeau: Did OK at start of pandemic. CERB was a good program. But blew any goodwill with WE scandal. Oozes insincerity. Will probably win again.

2. Erin O’Toole: Smarter than Andrew Scheer, which isn’t hard. Ran as a social conservative, won leadership, executed a whiplash-inducing about-face. Became a progressive conservative. Set self back months with idiotic claim that genocidal residential schools were for “education.”

3. Jagmeet Singh: Shovels Trudeau’s driveway, washes Trudeau’s car, jumps off any bridge Trudeau tells him to. Not a party leader as much as a Liberal Party staffer.

4. Elizabeth May: Who? What? More importantly, why?

5. Maxime Bernier: See Elizabeth May, above.

6. Patty Hajdu: Alleged to be federal Minister of Health. Told us all to stay at home, flew hither and yon at taxpayers’ expense. Told us all to wear masks, didn’t herself when on aforementioned taxpayer-subsidized trips. Other than that stuff, doing great.

7. Derek Sloan: If knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing cavemen are your choice, Tory MP Sloan is your guy. Otherwise an ongoing embarrassment to his riding, his party, and the nation.

8. Bill Morneau: It’s not nice to pick on the politically dead, but no one ever said we were nice. Forgotten French villas! Unbalanced budgets! WE scandal! Multiple ethics probes! This former finance minister did ‘em all. Then he took the fall.

9. Lynn Beyak: There are lots of things for which Stephen Harper shouldn’t get the blame. For his Senate appointee Beyak, he deserves blame, big time. An unelected nobody who became a somebody for promoting racism, Beyak remains on the public teat. She deserves defeat.

10. The Troughers: You know why most newbie MPs fear another election, don’t you? They need six years of “service” to get their gold-plated MP pension. Until they reach that milestone, an election remains highly unlikely.

Ranking the best

1. Premiers, generally: They hail from different regions, they belong to different parties. But our Preems have been the pre-eminent pandemic politicos. They’ve made some mistakes, sure – how would you strike the health/life vs. economy/jobs balance? – but have generally done well.

2. Brian Pallister, specifically: Ditching the script, Manitoba’s Premier made an emotional on-camera plea for people to wear masks and safely distance, and won acclaim from everyone from political opponents to members of KISS. Shout it out loud.

3. Doug Ford, specifically: My firm did work for Ford’s government once in the past, but that hasn’t coloured my judgment: during the pandemic, a new Doug Ford has been revealed, and voters like it. Kinder and gentler sits well on his shoulders. Keep at it.

4. Chrystia Freeland: The erstwhile feminist Deputy Prime Minister isn’t Superwoman – her silence during the savaging of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott was one major lapse – but she is clearly smart and capable. Unlike her boss.

5. Annamie Paul: The newly-minted Green Party leader is unknown to many Canadians – but all Canadians should be happy to see a black, Jewish woman smash several glass ceilings and win. Next, a seat in the Commons!

6. John Horgan: B.C.’s premier deserved condemnation for calling an unnecessary election during the pandemic. But he won a majority because he’s done a good job during the selfsame pandemic.

7. Provincial public health officers: Unlike their federal counterpart, the various provincial/municipal public health bosses have been pretty outstanding. Deena Hinshaw in Alberta, Bonnie Henry in B.C., Horacio Arruda in Quebec, Eileen de Villa in Toronto and others – they communicate, they’re coherent, and they’re clear. (Not the one in Ottawa, however.)

8. The Mayors: Full disclosure – I’ve volunteered for Toronto’s John Tory and Ottawa’s Jim Watson in the past. But those two – along with Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi, Edmonton’s Don Iveson, Mississauga’s Bonnie Crombie, Vancouver’s Kennedy Stewart, and others – have not hesitated to burn political capital to push unpopular public health measures. Gutsy.

9. CERB bureaucrats: The Canadian Emergency Response Benefit literally saved millions of Canadians from hunger and worse during the pandemic. Thank the nameless officials in the Privy Council Office, Revenue Canada and Employment and Social Development who came up with the CERB. Not politicians who later claimed credit.

10. The other unseen leaders: The pandemic has been the biggest political disruption of our lifetimes. We have held it together, mostly, thanks to the selfless efforts of thousands of anonymous public servants everywhere. We owe them thanks, and a (hopefully) better New Year.

Warren Kinsella is a former Special Assistant to Jean Chretien.

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