Wednesday evening.

Today, I’m celebrating. The inauguration day went off without a hitch. Shortly before it, the FBI removed a couple of National Guard folks who had ties to white supremacist groups, and there was at least one person arrested for trying to infiltrate the Green Zone with false credentials. (Still hard to believe they had to set up an actual occupation-style Green Zone in their own capital.) But in the end, it looks like the domestic terrorist crowd decided not to try their luck. Tens of thousands of armed troops have that discouraging effect: it’s quite different from having the Capitol Police open up doors for you and give you directions to your political enemies’ offices.

But I digress – this is supposed to be a joyful occasion. Since the counter has to be reset every time there’s a coup attempt or a legitimate need for 25,000 troops to ensure the “peaceful” transition of power is, in fact, peaceful, I’d like to congratulate the United States on becoming the world’s newest and youngest democracy. Good luck with all that, eh.

Many others have written or will write about Donald Trump’s legacy. At some point, years or decades or centuries later, he’ll be whitewashed like so many other villains. As a political science major, I knew that the actual objectively worst president in the US history was James Buchanan. Not Bush Jr, not whomever else you hated at the time, but Buchanan, for he presided over the collapse of the United States, and did nothing to stop it. The guy had one job, and he failed miserably at it. This time around, though, and without any exaggeration, Donald Trump is objectively the worst president in America’s history. Buchanan may have passively failed, but Trump actively tried to overthrow his own government to eliminate the line of succession (VP Pence, House Speaker Pelosi, etc), and remain in power. That should be neither forgiven nor forgotten.

It will take Democrats in the US many years to undo the damage, but there should be rapid progress on the pandemic handling, if nothing else.

In covid news, Los Angeles County had to lift the environmental restrictions on the number of cremations allowed per month. The emergency order went into effect three days ago, and it’ll likely get extended. They had a backlog of 2,700 bodies waiting to be burned, and if that’s not low-key existentially horrifying, I don’t know what is.

Stay safe, y’all.