We’re done with 2024. It’s time to move on.

We’re all done with 2024. You don’t need a calendar to tell us that.

I know. We’re done thinking about it. But I’m paid to write politics, so hang with me. We’ll be finished soon enough.

Remember when Joe Biden dropped out? That was six months ago. It seems like six years ago.

Up until June, the president was fine. We weren’t supposed to believe our eyeballs. We saw him fall off a bicycle, avoid media questions and wander off stages.

Our attention spans may be getting shorter. The world may be spinning. But people aren’t blind to the obvious.

The obvious is what is in front of us, not hypothetical.

You can tell the public, “Abortion is on the ballot.” You can say that IF Trump wins the White House and IF he goes back on his word and IF the Republicans get 60 pro-life extremists in the U.S. Senate, THEN there will be a nationwide abortion ban.

You can blow a bunch of money pounding this fear. You can get pop culture’s biggest icons parroting it. You can get millions to blow up social media, shaming anyone who doesn’t believe it. 

But that’s a lot of “ifs” before you get to the “then.”

What’s obvious? What’s in front of us right now?

Abortion was 2022. We’ve long since moved on.

In 2024, we’ve moved on from Jan. 6. We’ve moved on from COVID. We’ve moved on from X. (Remember when that was Twitter?)

We had a major-party presidential nominee repeat an unverified social media rumor that people in Springfield, Ohio, were eating dogs and cats — during a nationally televised debate, no less.

Yet, in 2024, that’s what we all do, to some extent. We pick up something from somewhere. It tracks with what we think makes sense. So, we repeat it.

In our limited understanding of the world, it makes sense.

Haiti is poor, right?  Haitians in small-town America must be poor, too. Don’t they do voodoo? Sacrifice dogs and cats? Someone can’t find their pet? It must have been dinner for these poor people!

Sounds completely shocking and disturbing. It sounds *maaaaaybe* plausible in a motion picture kinda way. Besides, someone read it somewhere.

Oh! You mean it’s not true? Did fake news tell you that? No? Is everybody saying it’s not true now?

Oops! Sorry about that. Let’s move on. Don’t hold me accountable for that. After all, someone else read it somewhere.

But where is “somewhere?”

Somewhere in 2024 isn’t any reputable media. It’s not CNN. It’s not your local TV news. Maybe 20 people have two-day-old news thrown on their front porch these days.

People have moved on from that. TV news channels are running to specific demographics. Gotta lock in that particular market share. That niche.

What’s coming across on Apple News? Don’t wanna pay for that article? Google it. Someone has it free somewhere. Maybe someone is talking about it on Facebook if you’re 45 and older, Twitter if you’re 35 and older, and TikTok if you’re 25 and older.

Do you disagree with how the information is spun? Click on another hot link. Go to Rumble. Go to Truth Social. Or Substack. Or Bluesky. Or Reddit. Or Mastodon. Or Instagram.

Everyone has a corner of the universe. In 2024, we had so many ways to communicate with so many different people.

Yet, we’ve never been so tribalized. We’ve never been so isolated. We’ve never been so stuck inside our heads.

At some point, we’ll be done with it all. Overwhelmed by the options, choices, and different pieces of swirling information (accurate or not), people will throw up their hands and say, “F&*% it! I’m done.”

“Done hearing about we gotta ‘Fight! Fight! Fight.’ Done with all the political emails and texts asking for money. Done with the partisan bull crap.

“We’re done. Done. Done. Can’t we elect someone who just gets stuff done and QUIT BOTHERING ME?”

Maybe.

For now, we can all say one thing definitively: We’re done with 2024.

(Kyle Melinn is the editor of the Capitol news service MIRS. You can email him at melinnky@gmail.com.)