Although removed from office almost a month ago, Donald J. Trump continues to set presidential records. Only president to lose the popular vote in both general elections where he was on the ballot; only president to never reach a 50% approval rating during his term in office; only president to be impeached twice; only president to be tried after leaving office; and now, the president with the most bipartisan impeachment and majority conviction in history.
“That hymn you hear [playing in Congress] is ‘Just as I Am,’ and we’re open for deathbed conversions.” – Joe Scarborough, former Republican Congressman and MSNBC morning show host
Can you feel it? Impending political mortality is in the air. Trusted councilors leave the bedside, rats exiting a sinking ship; former shark allies mass in feeding frenzy, smelling blood in the water; media buzzards circle, waiting to pick the bones. US President Donald J. Trump is in extremis, with scant days to go before the end of his political career.
2020 went out with a bang in Nashville, Tennessee, when on Christmas Day 63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner self-detonated a bomb in his RV in front of an AT&T network hub, killing himself, devastating the surrounding area and causing communications outages across the state. No motive for his destructive suicide has yet been established for Warner, a tech specialist conspiracy theorist whose writings express concern with “shape-shifting reptilian creatures that appear in human form and attempt world domination.” But Warner took pains to prevent additional loss of life, with the RV broadcasting warnings of the pending explosion and urging evacuation for 15 minutes before detonation. Despite these precautions, eight were injured in the blast.
Given Trump’s disdain for science, fact and expertise, coupled with a complete inability to take direction or follow sage advice and a propensity for reckless action, it was perhaps inevitable that he and the coronavirus would become personally acquainted at some point, sooner rather than later. So Trump’s 12:45 AM EDT Tweet on October 2, 2020 confirming that both he and Melania had been exposed and tested positive, was hardly a shock, but it was a thunderous admission regardless. With Trump’s age and corpulence, he was a prime candidate for a serious, if not deadly, COVID-19 infection, and with his re-elect pending just a month away, his turbulent campaign was thrown into a tailspin, while a shattered nation waited with bated breath for the outcome.
On Sunday, 8 November 2020, gameshow fans the world over were saddened to hear of the death of Alex Trebek, host of “Jeopardy!”, after an 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Described as “the thinking man’s game show”, “Jeopardy!” inverted the traditional format by providing the answers to trivia questions, requiring contestants to phrase their replies in the form of a question.
The third longest-running gameshow on TV (after “The Price Is Right” and “Wheel of Fortune”), “Jeopardy!” has had several daytime and evening incarnations, but Alex Trebek has helmed the show for 37 years, since its latest version premiered in 1984. Its iconic final round theme is one of the most-recognized musical selections in the world, and the series has spawned several foreign-language versions in 32 countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Japan, Spain, Australia, Turkey and Israel. Trebek continued working throughout his cancer treatment, until the bitter end, appearing in the studio to film episodes just 11 days before his passing.
Now that the Democratic and Republican conventions are safely behind us, and their nominees are official, we can take a look at the acceptance charts for those nominations, as a preview of what to expect for the campaign and the upcoming election in November.
Joe Biden confirmed his Party’s nomination by uttering “with great honor and humility, I accept this nomination,” at 10:49 PM EDT on August 20th, 2020, from a largely empty school gymnasium in Wilmington, Delaware, with himself, his running mate, the spectators and crew observing current CDC guidelines on mask-wearing and social distancing.
Donald Trump’s statement that “with a heart full of gratitude and boundless optimism, I profoundly [? did he mean “proudly”?] accept this nomination” occurred on August 27th at 10:28 PM EDT, in front of a crowd of 1500 people, largely without masks, packed check-by-jowl on the White House lawn.
