Madness, memes, and media malfeasance (must be Tuesday). It’s embarrassing to admit, but just a little earlier this year I thought the election would be boring. Sure, the Democrats were calling Donald Trump a fascist, but they do that every four years, with every Republican, and the cartoonish slander wasn’t hitting like it used to. This was probably because Trump had already been president. Joe Biden was currently president. We knew these men. There was no scary unknown in the race, no matter how badly pundits on both sides wanted to work with that primal storytelling material, and the threat of a scary unknown is what I always assumed drove people insane inside of an election. It was late June, and I was feeling… fine? For Americans, the question was simple: are you better off now than you were four years ago? People would answer differently, but they would answer soberly, and come November we’d all move on.

Long story short, no — and also lol. Lmao, even. That is not what happened.