Since it seems to be a season of rampant conspiracy-mongering, I thought I'd join in the fun with something I wrote eleven years ago.

I should mention that I do apologize for there not being a new column today, but I am still hard at work digging through all the political news of 2020 in preparation for this (and next) Wednesday's year-end awards column. Normally this is a marathon of research, but this year has been a particularly tough one to relive in such a fashion, so it's taking me longer than usual. I mean, would you voluntarily sit down and scrutinize everything that happened politically all year long, or would you rather like to... I don't know... repeatedly beat your head against a brick wall? At this point, I know which I'd rather do, but I've got no choice in the matter.

In any case, please enjoy the following, since like I said we seem to be deep into a rather dark conspiracy season. Oh, and happy solstice, everyone! Don't forget to check out the planets converging, tonight....

Originally published December 23, 2009

Speaking as someone who generally enjoys a good conspiracy theory just for the "creative writing" aspect alone, in all good conscience I simply must report this shocking news: I have uncovered a big, fat conspiracy that is no mere theory. We're either being lied to, or we're joining in the propagation of the lie ourselves, with merriment. In actual fact, it would not be hyperbole to call this the father of all conspiracies.

And almost every single one of us has participated in this gigantic hoax, in one form or another, at least once in our lives. For many, it happens like clockwork on a regular basis. And it seems to prove Hitler's point about the "Big Lie" -- if you repeat it often enough, sooner or later a certain segment of the populace will accept it as being true.

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Once again, it's been a momentous week in American presidential history. Right as we were writing last week's column, the Supreme Court laughed President Donald Trump's last-ditch legal effort to overturn the will of the voters of multiple states right out of court. They were entirely correct in unanimously turning the case down, because it was so very laughable a concept to begin with. Texas was essentially arguing that it should be able to have a veto over any other state's election, because they didn't approve of that state's election process (in reality, what they really didn't approve of was who won those states). Coincidentally enough, they only complained about the states which, if their votes had been denied, would have handed the election to Trump -- even though several other states (including some red ones) had done exactly what Texas was complaining about in the four states they tried to sue. It was all nakedly transparent, and not based in any legal or constitutional foundation whatsoever. Which, again, is why it got unanimously laughed out of the highest court in the land.

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What will the political landscape look like after Donald Trump leaves office? That question is on a lot of people's mind right now, for obvious reasons. Everyone who voted for Joe Biden wants the entire country to move on and move forward, obviously. But even a lot of Republicans truly hope that the post-Trump world arrives sooner rather than later. What's standing in the way, however, is Trump himself, who shows no signs of fading into the background any time soon.

Will Trump immediately announce he's running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination? Will he bide his time and announce on a more-traditional schedule (say, after the 2022 midterms)? Or is it all just a bluff -- will he decide not to run at all? Nobody knows. Probably not even Trump himself, at this point.

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It's a pretty rare day when I devote an entire column to sports. But today has to be one of those days, because Major League Baseball just took two giant steps forward that will right two historic wrongs that simply had no right to still exist in the year 2020. The Cleveland Indians announced they were dropping their racially-insensitive name, and the league finally decided to overturn a decision made 51 years ago and include the Negro Leagues in their official definition of what constituted a "major league" in the sport. Both, as I said, were two giant leaps forward for equality and inclusiveness, and both should be duly celebrated.

This all goes back to the very first time I wrote about sports for an entire column, way back in 2007. And I have to say that I am downright astonished that it has all changed so fast, although 13 years may not sound fast at all. But to be honest, I didn't expect any of it to change in my entire lifetime, so I have to say it was faster than I thought it would happen.

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One particularly apt metaphor was making the rounds yesterday, to describe two very different events. It was, we were told, "D-Day." The significance of this is that D-Day wasn't the actual end of World War II -- not by a long shot. What it was, however, was just as important: it marked the real beginning of the end.

This is why it was entirely appropriate for this metaphor to be used for two separate and unrelated events: the first COVID-19 vaccination shots given to nurses and other healthcare workers, and the Electoral College officially confirming that Joe Biden will be our next president. In both cases, this represents the beginning of an ending.

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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.

Today, though, was different. I learned for the first time that the Electoral College meets on "the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December," as well as all sorts of other nuts-and-bolts trivia about the process. And I certainly wasn't the only one learning these things, and watching just as closely. Thankfully, there were no reports of violence or obstruction from any of the states (even Michigan, where such worries were strongest). American democracy did what it was supposed to do today, the only difference was that this time a whole bunch more people were actually watching.

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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.

And throughout it all, Trump's been the world's biggest sore loser. He's been filing dozens of flimsy lawsuits, and then repeatedly losing them in court. Over and over and over again. Pretty much every single argument the Trump clown car of lawyers has made has been duly laughed out of court -- even by judges Trump himself appointed.

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Well, this year both year-end holidays fall on a Friday, so I haven't completely decided how to handle our two annual awards columns. I basically have two options.

The first would be to run the first awards column next Friday (the 18th), and then run the second one the Wednesday following (the 23rd). This would mean I'd get them both over and done with before the holiday week.

The second option is to run both the columns on Wednesdays, the first one right before Christmas (the 23rd) and the second right before the New Year (the 30th). This would give me more time to prepare -- and these columns involve an insane amount of preparation, because I have to review the entire year's worth of political news. And one year under Trump is like five normal years. Consider, if you will, that one year ago today the overarching subject was Trump's impeachment. Nowadays, that seems like a lifetime ago, but it really was only a single year.

But whichever I choose (and I will keep people posted on that), I've still got to put together all the awards categories. And, like I did last year, this year I'm reaching out to my faithful readers to solicit nominations. I got plenty of great ones last time around, so this is definitely an exercise worth repeating.

I'm also going to make an assumption with these nominations. My normal policy is to never use a commenter's name in an actual column's text (to cite it, to give credit where it is due) unless I have express permission from that person to do so. But for today, I'm flipping that rule around. I'm going to assume that anyone who posts a nomination in a comment here is also giving me permission to cite them, if their nominee becomes the award winner. If you do NOT want your login name used this way -- or if you'd like credit under your real name (rather than the login), perhaps -- you must explicitly tell me that within the comment itself. So let me know up front if: (1) you don't want credit, or (2) you want credit under a different name, otherwise I'm just going to assume permission has been given.

So, everyone ready? It's a long list, and it's in two parts. Obviously, right now, I'm much more concerned with the first part of the list, because those will all be in the first column I'm going to write. So everyone get their wayback machine ready, take a trip through 2020, and give me your best ideas for the following categories:

Biggest Winner of 2020

Biggest Loser of 2020

Best Politician

Worst Politician

Most Defining Political Moment

Turncoat Of The Year

Most Boring

Most Charismatic

Bummest Rap

Fairest Rap

Best Comeback

Most Original Thinker

Most Stagnant Thinker

Best Photo Op

Worst Photo Op

Enough Already!

Worst Lie

Capitalist Of The Year

Honorable Mention

Person Of The Year

Again, the second part of this list is less important now, because I'll have more time to get this together -- and I will probably run another of these solicitation columns after the first awards column is posted, seeking out your suggestions for these categories:

Destined For Political Stardom

Destined For Political Oblivion

Best Political Theater

Worst Political Theater

Worst Political Scandal

Most Underreported Story

Most Overreported Story

Biggest Government Waste

Best Government Dollar Spent

Boldest Political Tactic

Best Idea

Worst Idea

Sorry To See You Go

15 Minutes Of Fame

Best Spin

Most Honest Person

Most Overrated

Most Underrated

And, as always, the final category is "Predictions," where you can make wild-eyed predictions about what is going to happen in 2021. Got any ideas, for any of these? Let me know.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

President-Elect Joe Biden has been making lots of news with his slow rollout of nominees for various cabinet choices, top advisors, czars, and agency heads. So far, Team Biden has taken a very systematic approach, choosing one or two main areas each week (such as pandemic response or the economy), and then rolling out entire teams of top advisors all at once. This helps the media and the public keep their focus on individual areas of responsibility, and as a result it gives all the Biden picks lots of good press (for being so gradual and comprehensible).

Of course, as with any incoming Democratic president, there are a lot of groups vying for influence in the upcoming Biden administration, some playing pure identity politics (arguing for more of a certain minority or gender or what have you) while others are playing more of an ideological game (trying to get more progressives appointed, for example). With each new announcement, some groups are happy while others are disappointed. Such is the nature of filling out an administration, it is worth pointing out, and such is the nature of the Democratic Party's various wings and power centers (the Will Rogers quote: "I am not a member of any organized political party -- I am a Democrat" springs to mind).

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That title can be read in one of two ways. The first is more poetic, based on the old "de Nile ain't just a river in Egypt" joke. As a river ends, it empties into the sea through a large delta. Or it can be read the way math and science uses the term. "Delta" (Δ) is the Greek letter used to signify "change in" (a rocket scientist talks about "delta-vee" instead of "change in velocity," for instance). Either way, though it signifies that the rampant denial in the Republican Party right now is soon going to have to change, and that that day is rapidly approaching.

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