Today the nightmare will end and Donald Trump's empire – sometimes outrageous, often horrific and always, always eventful – will come crashing down.
After four years of carnage and chaos, the incumbent US President will be replaced this afternoon by his successor, the 78-year-old Democrat Joe Biden.
You couldn't call it boring.
Trump has shocked and appalled his critics almost since the moment he took office, with an approach to the presidency that sometimes appeared to verge on the certifiably insane.
To his supporters, though (and there are more than 70 million of them out there), he's still – somehow – a saviour when it comes to dismantling the US political machine.
That much was made abundantly clear a fortnight ago, when armed insurrectionists – spurred on by Trump's incendiary rhetoric – stormed the US Capitol.
It was a terrifying sign of just how far the US has fallen over the course of Trump's presidency – on a day that spoke volumes about his approach to both defeat and democracy.
Today, his last as the most important man on earth, was a typical mixture of the brash, the daft and the absurd.
Here's what Donald Trump got up to today.
Shocked critics with a bizarre travel decision (which affects Ireland)
On the eve of Joe Biden's presidency, Trump announced shock plans to lift the travel ban on Ireland – as well as the UK, Brazil and much of Europe – despite perilously high levels of Covid-19 across the world.
Biden will move quickly to block the move, his spokesperson confirmed – but the episode showed Trump at his most terrifyingly impulsive.
In an order approving the move, he wrote: ""I agree with the Secretary that this action is the best way to continue protecting Americans from COVID-19 while enabling travel to resume safely."
Broke handover tradition along with First Lady Melania (again)
Both of the Trumps – the president, and his wife Melania – are well used to criticism.
And it seems they're determined to depart the way they came in – in a firestorm of abuse.
Melania, it has been reported, did not invite future First Lady Jill Biden for a walkthrough of the private living quarters at the White House – a move that discards almost 70 years of tradition.
Her husband, meanwhile, is reportedly planning a military sendoff – for himself.
Continued to sulk ahead of Biden's inauguration
Throughout the US presidential election campaign, as well as its insane aftermath, Trump consistently refused to accept as legitimate the results of an election that saw him comfortably defeated.
That fact hasn't changed.
Right up until his last hours in office the president has raged against Biden's victory, and has urged his supporters to fight against it.
Tomorrow, he won't be at Biden's inauguration, making him the first president since Andrew Johnson in 1869 to skip his successor's inauguration.
Weighed up a pardon for Joe Exotic, the star of Tiger King
Trump's presidency has been full of surreal moments.
But the possibility of a pardon for Joe Exotic – surely takes the biscuit.
The star of hit Netflix series Tiger King is reportedly so confident that he'll get an 11th-hour pardon, he's got a limo on standby to pick him up from prison.
Truly incredible.
