The usual Christmas cheer thing is tough pull this year. But I’ve been doing my sunny, delusional best to convince friends and family that genuine, valid indicators point to a much improved world beginning in mid-to-late March.

“How so, Kemosabe”, you ask?

1: After eleven months of buffoonery, serious, experienced, organized people are taking over the pandemic response. The confederacy of semi-literate grifters in executive offices has been neutered. A full bore, all hands on deck, coordination of private/public vaccination infrastructure is already evident. There is no doubt whatsoever that instead of playing golf, The First 100 Days will be committed to applying science and sophisticated logistics to stifling the spread of COVID-19.

2: The vaccines work. It’s ironic that as virulent as the virus has been in terms of spread and impact on the most vulnerable, it is remarkably weak in the face of the vaccines that have been created.

3: While the economic impact on lower-income essential/face-to-face workers has been criminal, the millions who have not lost income (or their lives) represent an unprecedented reservoir of pent-up consumer demand. After a year of not traveling, or dining out, or meeting up for happy hour much less foregoing “recreational” retail shopping, a large and fortunate percentage of the public has amassed a remarkable pool of unspent discretionary income. Whether for pleasure or business, the travel and hospitality industries, and all those they employ, foresee a fast-rising restoration of demand as vaccinations increase daily by the hundreds of thousands.

4: Damage to far too many restaurants and bars has been fatal. (By one estimate we could have kept them all afloat, paying wages, for $25 billion a month.) But the demand that kept them in business prior to the pandemic is still there and likely will emerge even more vigorous as consumers accept the effectiveness of the vaccines and rush back to resume what many regard as a basic luxury/pleasure of daily life.

5: In terms of rebound, factor in the pent-up desiure and enthusiasm for any activity you might think of as “social”. Entertainments like movies, concerts, museums, sporting events and on and on. Then add in the people they employ.

Point being, that while, yes, there continues to be a fathomless pool of Trump Stupid out there, reality has at long, long last developed an unstoppable momentum.

Sure, Donny’s flatulent attorney Rudy and his “elite strike force” of tin foil hat gargoyles are still around looking more farcical and deranged by the day. And it’s true that 80% of the Republican congressional caucus remains so terrified of an incompetent reality TV act they don’t dare say out loud that he is now not just a loser, but an embarrassingly bad and whiney loser. And yeah, we still have the indicted attorney general of Texas suing other states to overturn their elections. Not to mention of course the cynically vain ex-beauty queen governor of South Dakota who equates her presidential prospects with how little she does to keep her citizens alive, (as many of them are choppered out of South Dakota to other overwhelmed states).

All this lunacy remains. But with Trump defeated, the relevance of their idiocy and cowardice has been dramatically reduced. Yes, TrumpNation will continue to be a national embarrassment, and yes, their (and uber-left anti-vaxxers’) resistance to vaccination will be an impediment to full-scale COVID relief.

But their historic, fatal incompetence is being shoved through the exit.