This Concludes This Episode…..

No it doesn’t.

Trump leaves office in a country half of whose population believes that the 2020 election was rigged, and that he was illegally removed from office by some mysterious conspiracy, just as he was working so selflessly and effectively to make America great again.

That 74 million voters can be duped in 2020 means that you and I live among 74 million people who will believe essentially anything, if it comes out of the mouth of a clever demagogue, and is supported by a “news” channel.

Are we to suppose that Trump was the last of his kind, and this type of lunacy can’t arise again in the future?

Are we to believe that the hatred of blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQs, and, to a certain degree, women, is simply going to evaporate?

Will our educational standards magically rise to the point that people can spot and reject bald-faced lies and other assertions that fly in the teeth of basic science?

The answer to all these questions, of course, is no.

That doesn’t mean that the country is doomed, but it certainly means that letting our guard down because “the episode is concluded” is a truly terrible idea.