2016? Bah, Humbug!

Yes, the time has finally come to kiss off 2016 –to put it in the rearview mirror and  turn the page to a brand, spanking-new year.

Thank goodness!

Now, I’m not one of those optimistic fantasizers who think that the end of any year means only better things are in store the following year. History  has proven otherwise. However, I have to admit that I’m not sorry to send this stinker of a year, 2016, to the trash bin. It’s high time.

This year has been a grim one in so many ways. Start with our presidential campaign, which surely was one of the worst of my lifetime and which featured two of the lousiest and most disliked candidates in memory. If, at the beginning of 2016, anyone had told you that Hillary Clinton would have a terrible time defeating an old socialist in the Democratic Party primaries — would you have believed them?

And if anyone had predicted, 365 days ago, that Donald Trump would actually win the GOP nomination — and then go on to, incredibly enough, defeat Hillary Clinton for the White House — would you have believed them?

But that’s, of course, what took place. Clinton ran an absolutely, unbelievably bad campaign, during which she could never articulate what she’d actually do as president. She relied, instead, on the constituency she believed could push her into the Oval Office — blacks, Hispanics and women. Unfortunately for her, she forgot about — ignored — those individuals whose skin color happened to be white.

Trump ran what the mainstream media — the New York Times, ,the Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS — all derided as a racist, misogynistic, outrageous campaign. Those media elites all knew — they were certain — that Trump was a loser. A buffoon. A clown. He had no chance — none whatsoever.

Those media elites just went on assuming that Hillary Clinton was so obvious a choice for president that even those folks in fly-over country could see it and reject Trump.

So much for the wisdom of the media elites. And now, as the New Year begins, they’re responding to Trump’s victory and to everything he’s said or done since — or not said or done — with as much hate and venom as they can muster. They’re just infuriated that “the people” didn’t — don’t — listen to their wisdom. And they’ll do everything in their remaining power to de-legitimize Trump’s presidency. Here’s hoping they fail.

And the nation remains hatefully divided as our New Year dawns. Democrats cannot and will not “get over” Trump’s win — so they and the GOP are all set up to just keep hating each other. Compromise need not enter the room — ever.

But the Russians might have been able to “enter the room.”  Our intelligence agencies believe they tried to influence the election results in Trump’s favor, and there’s no doubt Russian leader Vladimir Putin rooted against Clinton.  But anyone who seriously believes Putin’s intervention — if there was intervention — defeated Clinton is delusional.  Clinton lost because she ran a horrible, awful, terrible campaign.  End of story.

And, as our old year ends, the futility of President Obama’s foreign policy has come into sharper focus. The fall of Aleppo — and Russia’s role in propping up Syrian leader Assad while the United States stood by and did nothing — is nothing less than a disaster for U.S. influence in the Middle East. Obama wanted to diminish America’s role in that part of the world, and he’s done so, with horrific results and more to come.  After all, whenever there’s a power vacuum anywhere in the world, someone “else” will step in — and in the Middle  East, that “someone else” is named Putin.

Terrorists made headlines overseas this year, in France and Germany and many other places, bringing death and destruction and fear with them.  At year’s end, it was clear that stopping lone wolves inspired by terrorist groups was going to tax the skills of every major intelligence agency in the world.

And near the end of the year, the president cemented his status as a foreign policy know-nothing by insulting Israel, leaving it to Trump to message the Israelis to hold on a few days until he, Trump, can become president. Nice going, Mr, Obama.  Please leave now and don’t slam the door on your way out.

But there were other stories to be told this past year, and many of them helped make 2016 one to forget.  There was a big uptick in fatal attacks against American police officers.  The murder rate in some American cities skyrocketed, with Chicago becoming a near war zone.  And a number of high-profile people died in 2016.  That happens every year, of course, but it seemed especially harsh near the end of 2016, when, incredibly enough, a high-profile actress — Carrie Fisher — died just 24 hours before her well-known actress mom, Debbie Reynolds, did the same.  Every death is a tragedy for someone, but these two seemed absolutely Shakespearean.

Not everything that took place this year was bad, of course.  In sports, the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship, and in the process, brought a championship to a city that had not seen one in a half-century.  But the Chicago Cubs out-did that by winning the World Series — winning it! — for the first time in about a million years.  Their victories gave their respective cities something to cheer about, and that made the rest of us feel good, as well.

And, as always, hundreds of millions of Americans went about their daily lives, going to work and raising families no matter what took place around the nation or the world.

But it seems clear, as 2016 draws to a close, that there’s a feeling of unease, of distrust, permeating our land.  It’s not just that half the nation can’t or won’t “get over” the election — it’s a feeling that something’s not right, that somehow, things “aren’t working” in the United States.  Perhaps that’s the “new normal” in this age of hateful talk radio and cable TV and Facebook and Twitter.  Each of those media outlets has become home to the most vile commentary and attacks, and no one seems willing or able to take a step back and discuss matters rationally.

As the great Walter Cronkite used to say at the end of his CBS newscasts, “That’s the way it is.”  So it’s good-bye and good riddance to 2016 — and here’s hoping 2017 treats us — all of us — a bit more gently.