I just spent a few hours watching the Electoral College vote. Now, admittedly I am a pretty wonky political guy, but I have never before paid even the slightest attention to the formality of each state's electors meeting to cast their official ballots to elect the next president. It was always an afterthought, a mere formality. Something you'd hear about maybe a day or so after it happened, because it was of no real consequence. Even in the midst of the 2000 Bush v. Gore fight, nobody really paid much attention to the Electoral College, because it simply wasn't all that relevant to the legal fight.

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President Donald Trump, as we all know full well by now, has truly become the thing he hates the most: a total loser.

He's lost the 2020 election so many times, it's hard to keep track of them all. First, he lost when all the votes were counted. Then he lost after he demanded they recount the votes. Then he lost when all the states certified their results. Then he lost when all the states named their electors to the Electoral College. Monday, he's going to lose the biggest one yet, as the Electoral College votes 306-232 for Joe Biden.

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That headline is meant as a joke, because the much-more-typical headline of its type (that lazy political writers love to use) is: "Democrats In Disarray." But this week the Trump circus is finally beginning to realize that it's almost time to fold its tents and leave town, and the result has been the party beginning to eat its own, as it tries to figure out how to cope with the looming post-Trump era.

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Today was a notable day for Democrats, because for the first time in almost 58 years, the state of Arizona now has two Democratic senators. Senator Mark Kelly -- astronaut and husband to Gabby Giffords -- was sworn in today, since the election he just won was a special election (meaning he didn't have to wait until January to take his oath). And I for one would like to thank outgoing seat-warmer Martha McSally for personally making this possible.

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President Donald Trump has spent the past two weeks tweeting from his basement. If you ignore these tweets, he hasn't done much of anything else at all for that entire period of time. He laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for Veterans Day, and he gave a very halfhearted announcement on the progress of the vaccine trials... and he's also played a lot of golf. So much golf. But you know what? Trump golfing or sulking in the basement is actually a lot better than Trump in a fit of rage, trampling things all over the place like a deranged Godzilla.

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The public polling industry is not exactly seen in a good light right now. In fact, they are probably at the lowest point in public confidence and trust ever, since modern polling began. Maybe they should take a poll to figure this out, or something.

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Bad puns aside, though, the dereliction of duty shown by President Donald Trump this week should stun us all. It doesn't, of course, because: he's been derelict on so many duties over the past four years already; he's been especially out to lunch on the coronavirus pandemic; and most people are paying more attention to his extended tantrum about losing the election to Joe Biden. But we should be paying a lot closer attention to what Trump is failing to do right now -- and our guess is that we will, very soon now.

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Let me be clear from the start -- that headline is not meant to be metaphorical in any way. And I'm not even being figurative or quasi-metaphorical, in the "I get sick to my stomach when I think about politics" sort of way. Also, this title does not refer to the presidential election or what's going on in Washington at all. Sadly enough, that headline is meant to be taken completely literally. Because politics is sickening people across the country, period. On average, the chances of you catching COVID-19 are now clearly greater if you live in a red state than if you live in a blue state.

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Since we're smack in the middle of a Supreme Court judicial nomination fight, and since her own religion has come up, I thought it would be a good time to re-run the following column. I wrote it back in 2014, so a few things have changed.

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Last night, Joe Biden gave the debate performance we all wished we had seen last week. Now, that statement isn't strictly accurate, since the event Biden appeared at last night was a townhall meeting with undecided voters and not an actual presidential debate. Also, the reason we didn't see this performance last week was because the incessant noise and bluster from Donald Trump made it all but impossible to hear what Biden was actually saying. Nevertheless, last night's performance was indeed what most voters should have watched instead of last Tuesday's debate.

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