…well, you know.

On Wednesday, January 20th, Joe Biden will formally become President of the United States and Trump and company will finally be gone.

The repercussions of the insurrection/coup attempt of January 6th are still playing out, with many of the insurrectionists being identified and brought to justice. Some of them have managed to be bailed out while a few are in jail.

The after effects of this attempted coup have been interesting, at least on media.

Donald Trump and several of the more obnoxious right-wing firebrands have been blocked from social media, primarily on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Parler, a site which catered and/or was frequented by people on the far right, has gone dark.

Over at newsweek.com, Alexandra Garrett writes…

Election misinformation drops over 70 percent After Social Media Platforms Suspend Trump: Study

I’ve noticed that since all these online services have dropped Trump and company, things have been far more… calm. I’m not pulling my hair with this person or that person -often led by Trump- lying over and over about how the election was “stolen”, without acknowledging the fact that they had plenty of time to present any legitimate evidence of any attempt to steal and bring it to the courts… and they did no such thing.

Sure, they went to court many, many times and, with the exception of one “win” which didn’t change a single vote, they lost each and every time.

There remain only two full days following today for Trump’s presidency and there are reports that some people have spent considerable money trying to influence Trump into giving out pardons.

Paying Trump directly or indirectly to do so, of course, amounts to bribery yet I admit to being surprised that we haven’t heard about any pardons over the past few days.

I wonder if we’re going to see a flood of pardons in the next two days -or perhaps even starting today- or maybe Trump wants to end his presidency without any more new controversies.

Here’s the thing about pardons: By given them out, the subject receiving them essentially is acknowledged to have done something unlawful. If Trump pardons, say, his children or any close business/political partner, they effectively carry the stain that they were guilty of something.

Trump will be gone soon enough but already it feels like the balloon has deflated quite a bit.

Let’s see what happens next.