This isn't just the Keystone Kops, it's now a full-on Keystone Koup attempt. Before we get to any of it, however, we have to pause to wish Joseph Robinette Biden Junior a happy 78th birthday. Many happy returns, Joe!

Biden is now several steps closer to being sworn in as America's next president in less than nine weeks, as state after state certifies that Biden did indeed beat Donald Trump. Georgia did so today, and several other important states are slated to do so on Monday. By December 8th, all states will have done so and appointed their electors to the Electoral College.

Georgia officially going for Biden means, of course, that there is no viable route for Trump to get to the 270 votes needed to win the Electoral College. The head of the General Services Administration (Keystone Division) has so far refused to sign an "ascertainment" verifying Biden's win, however, and just issued her first post-election tweet. We are not making this up -- here is what Emily Murphy tweeted:

Dcccf Rex zzz. @#z@smaan anaNN

This, of course, prompted much hilarity online, with the best response being: "Dcccf Rex zzz come in. This is Covfefe. Do you copy?"

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I have to apologize in advance, because today's column has nothing whatsoever to do with politics. Regular readers know that on exceedingly rare occasions, I feel the need to comment about something completely separate from the political world. Sometimes I'll toss in my two cents on the subject of sports, or grammar, or anything else I feel so strongly about that I am compelled to share my thoughts. But I certainly never thought I'd ever devote an entire column to a television game show.

Recently -- and tragically -- we all mourned the death of Alex Trebek. The host of Jeopardy! was loved by millions, and for good reason. The show has long been a totally different kind of game show, and no, I'm not talking about the "respond in the form of a question" part of it. Unlike virtually every other game show on television, Jeopardy! contestants do not spend time yelling and screaming and emoting. Also, half of the show's time is not taken up with chitchat and other irrelevancies. It is a throwback to a much older style of game show, because the show's complete focus is on the game itself -- the trivia questions (or, more properly, answers) and the knowledge and speed of the contestants. More questions are posed on Jeopardy! in five short minutes than are asked on any other such trivia show (The Weakest Link, for example) in an entire hour. That's one reason why it is so fun to watch -- because you don't have to wade through a whole bunch of jumping up and down or faux-serious discussions between the host and the contestant, or any of the other nonsense the other shows use as "filler." There's only one very short segment of Jeopardy! where the contestants are briefly interviewed, and then the entire rest of the show is jam-packed with trivia. In other words, the game itself is the important thing -- not the contestants' ability to scream or the host's ability to endlessly fill up time.

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President Donald Trump is the lamest of lame ducks right now. He is so lost in his fantasy that he somehow didn't lose the election to Joe Biden that he has almost completely stopped even any pretense of doing his job. He rouses himself out of his funk to occasionally fire someone who has annoyed him in some way, but that's about it, really. Otherwise his time is consumed by all the sour grapes served up at his giant pity party.

Of course, whether Trump concedes to Biden or not is really immaterial. Trump can refuse to do so right up to 11:59 on the morning of January 20, and he will still cease to be president one minute later. Concessions have no legal value at all, in other words, they are merely a polite tradition. So why would anyone have expected Trump to do the polite and gracious thing?

However, Trump's royal snit is also having real-world consequences. He has refused to allow the transition of power to move forward, which doesn't just impact Joe Biden and his team, it affects all of America. By refusing to allow an ascertainment that Biden won, Trump is endangering our national security, plain and simple. Which is exactly what he swore an oath not to do.

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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.

Snark aside, however, it is indisputable that they've now blown two presidential elections in a row. Not everywhere, to be sure -- some of the state-level polling was indeed accurate. The national polling showed Joe Biden would win with a healthy margin, and he did. But they got this margin wrong -- outside their own vaunted "margin of error," in fact. We won't know by exactly how much until all the final vote counts have been recorded and published, so it'll take a few more weeks to even get all the data that needs sifting through to determine what went so wrong -- again.

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OK, that subtitle is a bit of a stretch, we fully admit. It's supposed to be a pun on "Nero fiddled while Rome burned," but we know it kind of falls short. Hey, some weeks it's easy to come up with these, and some weeks it is harder, what can we say?

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.

Over 10,000,000 Americans have now been diagnosed with COVID-19. The last million of these happened in the first 10 days of this month. The infection rate is going through the roof, topping 120,000 a day... then 130,000... 140,000... and now 150,000. That was yesterday -- today might top 180,000 (final numbers were not in, as of this writing). At this rate, the next million new cases will appear in only a week's time... or even less. Some experts are now predicting that this will rise to a jaw-dropping 400,000 new cases a day by Inauguration Day. That will mean adding a million cases will only take two-and-a-half days, come January. This is what exponential growth looks like, folks.

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While Democrats are rightly excoriating President Donald Trump for his extended hissy fit over the election results (who's hiding in his basement now, Mister President?), they should also be in the process of dialing down expectations for what Joe Biden will be able to accomplish as president. Because in all likelihood, Democrats are not going to win both Senate seats in the Georgia runoff elections. It could happen, but even if it does it will still mean lowered expectations for what comes next.

I realize this is not a fun thing to contemplate, but it is the reality of the situation. Let's say Democrats do win both Senate races in Georgia, as a best-case scenario. They will then have 50 senators caucusing with them, and with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie, they will gain control of the chamber. But this puts them in a situation where any one Democratic senator can upset the applecart with his or her vote. Remember Joe Lieberman? That's what Democrats will face for each and every vote. And there are some rather conservative Democrats in the Senate (Joe Manchin immediately springs to mind). So grand plans to get rid of the legislative filibuster or tinker with the Supreme Court are almost certainly not going to succeed.

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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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As if we weren't already in Bizarro World, America is now going through a period where the national government has dedicated itself to one goal above all else: soothing President Trump's fragile and bruised ego. This is beyond pathetic, it's approaching being downright dangerous.

People are even admitting that this is precisely what is going on. Anonymously, to be sure, because who wants to bring down the Toddler-in-Chief's wrath? Here is the most extraordinary quote from a "senior Republican official" I think I've ever heard:

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The most amusing thing I heard last week was a possible-apocryphal story about a toddler who complained that all Mommy and Daddy wanted to do anymore was "watch the Map Show on television." But finally, after staring at that map all week long, on Saturday morning we all got the good news, as both Pennsylvania and Nevada were called for Joe Biden. Whether or not a news organization had called Arizona suddenly didn't even matter, because Biden was over the top with or without it. And 75 million people (and still counting) breathed the first big sigh of relief they have in four very long years, as the "Map Show" came to a glorious end. Donald Trump's presidency is not quite over yet, but the end is now clearly in sight.

Trump instantly became the two biggest things he truly hates: a loser, and irrelevant. No longer do we have to even care what he tweeted overnight when we wake up in the morning. Who cares what lunatic conspiracy theory he's ranting about now? Because it's almost over. It just doesn't matter that much anymore.

It's like a gigantic weight has been lifted. For the next four years, we will have a sane and non-psychopathic human being as president. No longer will parents have to explain to small children why the leader of our country is allowed to get away with embarrassing and degrading tweets that would get any of them kicked off Twitter in a heartbeat. No longer will science be held hostage to politics. No longer will the entire federal government ever have to contort itself to explain why what Trump said is somehow reality (when it so clearly is not).

Instead, even people within Trump's inner ranks are now admitting that all the lawsuits they're currently filing are no more than a sad attempt to make Trump feel better about losing. That's nothing short of pathetic, when you think about it. Trump is using the American legal system as nothing short of a security blanket. Actual lawsuits are being filed (and promptly laughed out of court) for the sole purpose of making President Linus Van Pelt feel better. About losing. Linus, at least, would have had a relevant Bible quote for the situation (probably something from the Old Testament), but that's obviously beyond Trump's meager abilities.

Trump has actually been pretty subdued -- for Trump -- ever since Election Day. He's ripped out a few deranged tweets, and given two equally-deranged appearances before the cameras, but that's not even par for Trump's course, really. It's been almost a week, after all. Twitter is mercilessly slapping on warning labels and blocking Trump's conspiratorial tweets with abandon. Jim Carrey called Trump the one thing he hates on Saturday Night Live -- a "loo-oo-oo-oo--ooooser." And Trump didn't even bother to explode in a rant against him. For Trump, this is indeed pretty subdued. He fired Mike Esper today, just to make himself feel better, but at this point it hardly matters. He can purge his inner ranks to his heart's content, but it really only means they'll miss two extra months' pay, since Joe Biden will be sweeping all of them into history's dustbin very soon now.

Joe Biden is already looking pretty presidential, by way of contrast. He gave a victory speech (finally!) on Saturday night that went over well, and then this morning he announced the formation of his COVID-19 transition task force, so he'll have a solid and detailed plan in place when he takes office in January. Even if Trump fires Dr. Anthony Fauci, he'll have a place to go, in other words. Biden did -- in one announcement -- what the nation has been desperately hoping for from Donald Trump since about February. Biden is assembling the experts, creating a plan of action, and preparing to deploy the full might of the federal government to fight this pandemic as competently as humanly possible. This plan will not take into account which party the governor of each state is from, because politics has no place in such an emergency. In short, Biden showed more competent leadership in one announcement than Trump has shown in nine whole months. And this was just the introductory announcement, mind you.

Biden will no doubt continue to act and be presidential in his upcoming statements to the press, and the entire focus of the political world is going to be on things like his cabinet choices and what executive orders he's going to sign on his first day in office (to instantly overturn all the worst ones Trump has issued during his single term). America won't immediately get back to normal, but we're at least now headed towards normalcy instead of further and further away from it. That's a welcome change indeed.

Meanwhile, it's a pretty safe assumption that Trump will continue to throw tantrums (both public and private) about his loss. But less and less attention will be paid. Trump will no longer be able to magically make himself the lead story on the news each night with a single tweet. Instead, people are just going to start shrugging their shoulders and saying: "Whatever...."

Trump will indeed make a few final headlines, when he finally gets around to realizing he has lost and that no amount of flailing around on the floor and screaming is going to change it. He'll likely begin issuing a tidal wave of pardons, starting with (perhaps) himself and (definitely) all his family members. He will also almost certainly pardon all his cronies and minions who went to jail -- but didn't turn on Trump. Michael Cohen, however, probably won't be one of them.

Donald Trump is fading, even within the Republican Party. Mitch McConnell is now exactly what he's always wanted to be -- the most powerful Republican in Washington. The real focus within the GOP is going to shift very soon now to all the 2024 hopefuls. My educated guess is that there will probably be at least two dozen Republicans who throw their hat in the presidential ring. Many of them will prudently wait until at least after the 2022 midterms to fully engage in the race, but you can already see a few others who have essentially started their 2024 campaigns (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and possibly Lindsey Graham). For now, they're staunchly defending Trump's conspiracy theories. For now. But pretty soon they'll be running solely for themselves.

We all woke up yesterday to a bright new day. No longer will America be continually embarrassed by our own president. No longer will presidential ego be the most important variable in any policy equation. Viciousness and mean-spiritedness are about to exit the Oval Office for good. In their place we will all have decency and stability instead. Biden's campaign started with a big idea, and he'll now be able to work every day to achieve it: restoring the soul of America. And that is indeed a much brighter future to contemplate than another four years like the last four.

The best commentary I've read on how the majority of the country felt Saturday morning when Pennsylvania went blue came from one of the commenters on my site. Here's the whole stanza from the quoted poem (Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"), because I can't think of a better way to end today's column:

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant