If, in November last year, I'd known Trump was as useless at being the president as he is, I would have had a very different, much more positive outlook.

Of course, I suspected that he'd be inept in ways we'd never seen before, but what if, after his inauguration, his latest surprise was that he was an extremely effective xenophobe?

Thankfully, not only does it seem like the world will keep turning, it seems like balance is being restored. Looking back to the new year, all those hyperbolic news reports about how extreme right wing candidates would be elected across Europe are to be laughed at. For me, as a Brit, the icing on the cake is the result of the UK election. Theresa May, probably my least favorite UK politician of all time (long story short, when she was home secretary she made it much harder to bring a foreign spouse into Britain,) is eating humble coalition government flavored pie. Hah!

But dessert related political similes aside, I'm honestly finding 2017 quite hopeful. Yes, glass half empty people point out that we're seemingly at greater risk of nuclear armageddon than at any point in the last 50 years, and Trump's really only just getting warmed up in terms of implementing his terrifying policies. But look on the bright side: we get tweets that have the nonsense word “covfefe” coming straight from the president!

The rest of 2017 looks, compared to how the start of the year looked, like a breeze. The White House will surely produce new scandals and Britain will become a global embarrassment when Brexit negotiations start; we've seen this, and we can act appropriately outraged/flabbergasted/dismissive as before. My point is, we've reached a new level of stability from this instability. We know the parameters and we know how to cope.

If that doesn't reassure you, well then you're probably a realist, and for that you have my pity.