any port in a storm if you've got a long enough anchor chain

 Comrades,

At long last we've arrived at Safe Harbor Day (US time) in the American Presidential election, which puts the final nail in The Donald's political coffin. Tap, tap, tap - in they go. Close 'er up ready to take that six foot drop into the democratic wormhole. Little wonder then that Madame Tussaud's - an institution devoted to good taste and always keeping up with the times - has already adjusted the DJ Trump! costume to one more suitable to the balmy climes of Florida. As I write, the US Supreme Court has just issued a one sentence judgement, throwing out all and any of The Donald's spurious objections to the clear cut result in the great state of Pennsylvania. It was pretty obvious from remarks made through back channels by the Chief Justice that he has no intention of getting involved in any of this foolish deluded chicanery - if anyone is more interested in protecting "states rights" then it's gotta be the Supreme Court.

And "states rights" is what it's all about here. Safe Harbor is simply a mechanism that guarantees that a state's Electoral College votes will be counted  when a joint session of Congress meets on January 6th to ceremoniously bring the Electoral College votes into the Capitol to have them counted by hand...one by one. And now it's safe to say that Uncle Joe has the numbers over the DJ!, 306-232. The Trumpotus of course will never concede defeat because, in his own mind and in the minds of millions of those who voted for the King of Buffoonery - he never lost. How could the Greatest and Most Beautiful President in the entire History of the World possibly lose an election unless there was a secret cabal of Left Wing Extremist Socialist Commies conspiring with the Deep State to rig the thing?? The Donald will go to his poor shallow grave forever screaming "I was ROBBED! They STOLE the election. EVERYONE knows that! ROBBED BLIND!" 

You might be thinking that the current exercise in the Miracle of Democracy in The States is "unprecedented", but that's where you'd be wrong, Safe Harbor day is enshrined in the Electoral Count Act of 1878, which was a legislative reaction to the complete & utter schemozzle that was the 1876 Presidential Election. Multiple states in a whole lot of goddamn political jiggery-pokery submitted competing 'slates' of Electoral College votes to Congress, which was so fully flummoxed that they had to appoint for the first and only time an Electoral Commission to sort out the result, which saw Rutherford B Hayes beating Samuel J Tilden to become the 19th POTUS, despite losing the popular vote in what became known as the Compromise of 1877 with a single Electoral College vote the difference between the winner and loser. In return, Hayes - to his credit - promised to serve only one term, and he delivered. And despite being a Republican, Hayes bears some eerie similarities to Uncle Joe, standing on a platform of "meritocractic government and the equal treatment of the people without regard to wealth, social standing or race".

Had to get the lil' history book down from the shelf and dust it off to be reminded that this election is not unsual by any means in the byzantine electoral system that the United States still insists on using, when back in 1878 they had the ideal opportunity to just abolish the Electoral College once and for all and make the whole shooting match an election decided by who's across the line first in the nationwide popular vote on the "one man, one vote" principal.  But nah, they didn't have the guts to yet again alienate the former Slave States who'd only recently been fucked-over good and proper in that small matter known as the US Civil War.

And there are other parallels too...poor ol' Uncle Joe accepting the ultimate in poisoned chalices - a hopelessly divided nation, a federal bureaucracy in smoking ruins, and the country being ravaged from sea to shining sea by a killer plague that's pushing all 50 states to the brink of another Great Depression. Never mind the 285,070 dead. Even now, the queues for food hand outs to the starving millions are literally miles long and the myriad of soup kitchens are doing their best trade in living memory. If it hasn't already, by the New Year the USA will have slipped back into the 'third world'. Cactus, by any measure.

I any case, Joe will give it all he's got left in him for the next two years and probably get nowhere. He'll then retire on 20 November 2022 at age 80, as he should, to his little pad in Wilmington, Delaware, spending his last remaining summers as his modest holiday house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. That way Kamala Harris becomes the 47th President by default and gets to campaign for the the next election for fully two years from the very considerable advantage and power of incumbency. You know it makes sense.

Legal action can continue after Safe Harbor Day, but it's pointless, as the Electoral College votes will be cast in the 50 State Capitols in six days time. And to make matters worse for The Loser, his attack dog in the Mad Bad Rude Boy Giuliani is now, thankfully, locked up in the hospital with a dose of Corona, and for all anyone knows, could be dead.

P'raps it's worth leaving the last word to the 2nd President of the USA, John Adams, who issued a precient warning to Uncle Joe all those years ago  "I came here expecting the worst, and it's worse than I expected."