The mainstream media has had eight years to figure out how to cover Donald Trump. But quite obviously they still haven't really figured out the best way to do so. They ping-pong back and forth between largely ignoring him or giving him a huge (and free and unchecked) megaphone to use. This conundrum is upon us once again in a big way, since at this point Trump has to be seen as the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

In 2015 and 2016, the media lavished all kinds of free airtime on Trump. They covered all his rallies live. Trump, after all, was entertaining -- and nobody really thought he had a chance of winning. So it was all just in fun: "Hey, look at the crazy guy the Republicans nominated to take on Hillary Clinton!" The late-night comedians had a field day. It was all just so laughable to even consider the notion that he could win.

Nobody's laughing now, of course. Giving Trump all that free media attention did not tear him down, instead it boosted him. He rode that wave right into the White House, in fact. It wasn't the only reason Trump won (there were plenty of others, to be sure) but it certainly helped him out.

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Few people will actually celebrate it, but today is the 40th birthday of the modern world. Because on this day, back in 1984, Apple Computers began selling the first Macintosh model. And thus 1984 was not like Nineteen Eighty-Four.

That's what the ad promised, at any rate. The television ad that introduced the Mac only ran nationally once (during the Super Bowl, no less), but it's still one of the most memorable ads of all time (which it should be, seeing as how it was directed by none other than Ridley Scott). This all seems entirely appropriate for the revolutionary product it was promoting. In the timeline of technological advancement in average people's lives, there was "before Mac," and then there was "after Mac" -- which is the world we all live in today. And it all started forty years ago.

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As I sit here watching the New Hampshire primary election results roll in, there don't seem to be any huge surprises developing yet -- most of the votes aren't in yet, so I suppose there's still time... but the chances are the headlines are soon going to be reading something along the lines of: "It's Over Almost Before It Began," as both Donald Trump and Joe Biden wrap up their respective nominations.

[Editorial note: Just after the last polling place closed, the news organizations called the race for Donald Trump, as was expected. Right after the write-in ballots on the Democratic side began to be counted, that race was called for Joe Biden -- again, as expected.]

Which would be historic, in a way. After all, it's still January. That is insanely early for a presidential nomination race to essentially be over for both sides. It may in fact be unprecedented in modern times.

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As usual, the first presidential primary in the country will take place in New Hampshire tomorrow night. But this won't be your garden-variety Granite State primary, on either side of the aisle. For Republicans, their choices have already dwindled to only two, while on the Democratic side the frontrunner isn't even on the ballot. Neither one of those things is normal.

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President Joe Biden got some excellent news today: the "vibecession" seems to be over. For those unfamiliar with this neologism, the term was coined by an educator a while back to explain the disconnect between the economic reality (measured by all the economic indicators) and how people actually felt about the economy. The economy has been doing amazingly well in recovering from the COVID pandemic slump, while at the same time public perception has remained a lot gloomier.

There are reasons for this disconnect. First, we thought the pandemic itself was over several times -- but each time another variant attacked and made things worse. So there's a "once bitten, twice shy" residual feeling from those experiences in unfulfilled optimism. Then inflation spiked, and when the Fed brought it back down, interest rates spiked. So there's always been at least one economic indicator out of whack with the rest of the good economic news. The news media fed the disconnect as well (as they always do) by highlighting the bad news (in apocalyptic terms, at times) while ignoring or downplaying the good news. So while the economic numbers stayed strong, the "vibe" out there was that we were actually in a recession -- even though it wasn't true. Hence the "vibecession."

But today, there was some excellent news on this front. Because finally the vibe has begun to shift, in rather dramatic fashion:

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Breaking news from Washington: budgetary disaster has been averted, once again! The government will not partially shut down tomorrow at midnight, as Congress just successfully passed a continuing resolution through both houses which will keep funding the government until at least the first of March. And they even accomplished this feat one day early!

You'll have to forgive me if I'm not impressed. In the first place, they got it done a day early for an entirely self-serving reason: so they wouldn't be trapped in Washington by a giant snowstorm (scheduled to hit tomorrow). It's an open secret that Congress can indeed get things done very quickly when they really want to. However, they only ever really want to when their own free time is at risk, which is rather pathetic when you think about it.

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It's mostly been lost in the fray of yet another government shutdown crisis, but there was actually some good news out of Washington this week. Congress (are you sitting down?) could actually be on the brink of doing something. No, really! And even more surprising: they could be on the brink of doing something good.

These days, Congress accomplishing anything productive is almost shocking. They spend most of their time on vacation, and when they do deign to return to Washington, they spend most of their time fighting pointless political battles or endlessly delaying the things that they absolutely must do -- like passing a budget. The budget deadline that arrives this Friday night is actually already months overdue, since the federal budget for this fiscal year was supposed to have been in place by the first of October. They are now looking at the first of March for when they could possibly accomplish the job -- which means that five months of the federal fiscal year will already have passed by the time they get their act together. That's if they are successful, mind you, which is in no way guaranteed. They could be always be forced to punt the deadline again.

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Nikki Haley, upon finishing third in the Iowa caucuses last night, had a rather bizarrely optimistic pronouncement. It ranks right up there with Bill Clinton proclaiming himself "The Comeback Kid" after finishing only second in New Hampshire, in fact (although, to be fair, Clinton's spin-job worked wonders for him). Here's what Haley had to say last night: "I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race." The audience reportedly applauded and cheered.

She's right... but only if you take out two words from her sentence. Because the correct summation of the Iowa results is actually: "I can safely say tonight Iowa made this a two-person race." Those two people, however (sorry, Nikki), are Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The primaries are over before they have even begun. The general election race is now underway. And much to most Americans' dismay, it is going to be a rematch of 2020.

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With fewer than 750 votes in -- less than one percent of the total -- the news organizations have already called the Republican Iowa caucuses for Donald Trump. As I write this, Ron DeSantis is up over Nikki Haley by a count of 161 to 159, so obviously there is still going to be a close race for second place. Neither one of them is topping 16 percent as of now, while Trump sits above 60 percent. All of these numbers could swing as the evening continues, but the fact that Trump is going to walk away the winner is already set.

The entire Republican primary season has the same feeling of inevitability that we're experiencing right now in Iowa. Perhaps Haley or DeSantis might score some sort of upset in one of the next few states, but even if they do, they're likely to see their hopes buried by Super Tuesday. By early March, the news organizations may have called the entire nomination contest for Trump.

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It is shocking (it always is), but here we are on the brink of the 2024 presidential election cycle's official start. The Iowa caucuses will be held Monday. Most of us, thankfully, will have a few more months to go before being faced with the prospect of going to the polls for our state's primary, when (hopefully) the weather will be a lot better than it is predicted to be in the Hawkeye State three days from now. They may be heading to their polls in the midst of a blizzard, with the temperature forecast to be: "Oh CRAP it is cold!" with windchill factors being as low as: "I can't feel my toes... or my face... just leave me here in this snowbank for the wolves to find...."

OK, we exaggerate, perhaps. But not by much. Hey, we grew up in a state that did get some snow (but usually not too much), so we do fully understand (as many Californians simply do not) what "six below" truly means.

Of course, this year, only Republicans will be having their votes counted on Monday. Iowa was defenestrated from the early-state Democratic calendar after their abject failure to count the Democratic votes in a timely manner the last chance they had, so it'll be a GOP-only affair this year.

[As all columnists who reveal future plot developments must, we hereby issue an official Spoiler Alert. Skip to the next paragraph if you want to stay up late Monday listening to the returns come in with breathless anticipation. OK, you have been duly warned!] The outcome of the GOP Iowa caucus, of course, is not in any doubt. Donald Trump is going to win. The only two questions left to be answered are: "By how much?" and "Who came in a distant second place?"

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