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Donald Trump has finally acknowledged the exit sign.

After nearly a month, reports say someone on his staff, plus other top Republicans, finally appealed to his vanity and convinced him that he was doing more harm to himself than to our democracy.

Always putting himself first, making Donald Trump great.

It wasn’t until his own actions looked more and more anti-American and authoritarian that Trump seemed to care about how it made his brand look. How’s this grab you? Every time you see the name Trump, you think “Dictator Towers” or “Stolen Election Casino and Hotel”?

It was that, plus realizing he never had to say the word “concession” ever. Concession is something you hire people to run at Coney Island. It’s not what a Trump loser does.

And so, this is how a president acts when he loses. He accepts the fact that he’ll be a former president soon. In golf parlance, Trump understands it’s time to stop playing slow and move his golf cart so that the Biden party can play through.

The big obstacle to the transition had been the administrator of the General Services Administration and her reluctance to recognize the Biden victory. Without Emily Murphy’s decision to do her job, nothing could be done officially with taxpayer funds. Her stalling allowed Trump and Giuliani to pick apart the election and sow more distrust in our democracy than a Russian hack.

But once most of Trump’s key legal challenges failed, and Georgia and Michigan were certified for Biden, there was no good reason to delay. Murphy allowed for the transition, as is her duty.

The gall kicked in when Trump took credit soon after in a tweet, still claiming a kind of victory (“I believe we will prevail”). But he signaled to his more than 70 million supporters that he was doing the right thing: “In the best interest of our Country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocol, and I have told my team to do the same.”

We’ve moved from the bald-faced lie to the fig-leaf lie, as if Trump were the big man who orchestrated it all.

What’s the truth? In this double-speak era, you take credit or find cover. Or both.

Biden supporters are just glad the transition can begin. Trump is happy his supporters want him to fight on.

The two Americas are still at odds, though somehow it feels like progress.

Asian Americans shouldn’t tolerate any further delay.

Asian Americans voted for Biden 68 percent to 29 percent over Trump, according to the AALDEF exit poll. Unlike the general popular vote count where Biden edged out a victory, at 51 percent to 47 percent, Asian American voters gave Biden a real mandate. Delaying tactics do not serve our community purposes.

Now let’s see how many cabinet posts or high-ranking Asian Americans are in a Biden administration.

PARDON PRACTICE
So we’re in transition. We still have to worry what Trump can do to muck things up in his final days as president. We can at least be thankful for this: The annual White House presidential turkey pardon is on despite our sourpuss/sore loser president.

The real good news is Donald Trump is not pardoning himself.

Or Paul Manafort. Or Michael Flynn. Or any of his convicted former campaign and presidential advisors. Maybe he’s practicing what he’d do for his buddies, as well as a reported “preemptive self-pardon"; essentially, a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for himself.

For the moment, the White House is just concentrating on actual turkeys.

Their names, Corn and Cob, are in keeping with themes of pardons past, where bird duos were named Bread and Butter, Peas and Carrots.

What about our Asian American Thanksgiving tables? Why not Tofu and Rice. Noodles and Soy Sauce. Or would that be Hand-pull and Noodles. Why not throw in a vegan name like Seitan? Or Gluten Puff. Sweet and Sour.

No, the White House couldn’t do something really fun and diverse like that.

But in keeping with the electoral travesty gripping the nation, Team Trump has come up with something new– a Turkey Poll, which considering the candidates is more like a real election! But will it take a month to count the results? And what about Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia?

You can actually vote for Corn or Cob on the White House website before the event.

Here’s the catch. Both birds get to live, no matter who wins. Corn and Cob will be going back to Iowa to live out their days in a sanctuary.

In other words, it’s a rigged election. Will Trump demand a recount? That would be silly. Not unless Rudy Giuliani finds some dead people voting online somewhere for Corn. Or Cob. It really is like a real election.

There is a serious side here, however.

Nearly 46 million turkeys will be killed this year for Thanksgiving, with another 22 million at the Christmas holiday. All told, 245 million turkeys are killed for food in the U.S. each year.

After living their lives in cramped, unsanitary, and borderline inhumane conditions, they are all killed in factory farms and served up for their cholesterol and tryptophan value.

Forty-six million turkeys. No pardons for them.

Maybe it’s a good thing that we’re all staying home, staying local, not going loco, not traveling or gathering in large groups to eat a Thanksgiving meal that shouldn’t be centered around a dead animal.

Not with the virus cases spiking throughout the nation. So mask up. Be smart. Stay safe. We have to be conservative here, not risk-takers, because the cost is your health and possibly your life.

America is finally in transition. Democracy will be normal again. And the man who never should have been president will be playing golf in perpetuity.

There’s plenty for which to be thankful, really.

Make sure you’re around for it all.