Tonight's January 6th Committee hearing may be yet another nail in the coffin for Trump and his enablers. 

Until then, I came across a couple of items that I think merit your special attention.  They provide some balance and perspective, something welcome as the drumbeat for Trump being jailed continues.
 
First, here is the cover and lead story from this week's issue of my beloved Economist, PDF'd for your convenience.  It is 100% spot-on and I couldn't agree more.   

Since we're keeping it super-real, here's a quote from Bret Stephens in today's New York Times regarding why so many still support Trump.  Part of the answer:  look in the mirror.  Trump supporters have come to despise "the elites" that constantly denounce him more than they don't like Trump's actions or Trump himself.  Wow.

Trump voters had a powerful case to make that they had been thrice betrayed by the nation’s elites.  First, after 9/11, when they had borne much of the brunt of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, only to see Washington fumble and then abandon the efforts.  Second, after the financial crisis of 2008, when so many were being laid off, even as the financial class was being bailed out.  Third, in the post-crisis recovery, in which years of ultralow interest rates were a bonanza for those with investable assets and brutal for those without.

Oh, and then came the great American cultural revolution of the 2010s, in which traditional practices and beliefs — regarding same-sex marriage, sex-segregated bathrooms, personal pronouns, meritocratic ideals, race-blind rules, reverence for patriotic symbols, the rules of romance, the presumption of innocence and the distinction between equality of opportunity and outcome — became, more and more, not just passé, but taboo.

It’s one thing for social mores to evolve over time, aided by respect for differences of opinion.  It’s another for them to be abruptly imposed by one side on another, with little democratic input but a great deal of moral bullying.

This was the climate in which Trump’s campaign flourished.  I could have thought a little harder about the fact that, in my dripping condescension toward his supporters, I was also confirming their suspicions about people like me — people who talked a good game about the virtues of empathy but practice it only selectively; people unscathed by the country’s problems yet unembarrassed to propound solutions.