There was a moment Saturday morning when we suddenly felt what we wanted. And then, just as suddenly, it was gone.

The Senate trial of Donald Trump had been proceeding as expected: statements., videos, everything on track for the part that mattered, getting the traitors on the record for their treason. Nobody expected him to be convicted. We just wanted a head count.

That’s all we thought we wanted, anyway. Until the possibility of much more turned up.

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We’re suddenly discovering a lot of things we don’t give a shit about.

Let’s start with That Woman from Georgia. We don’t give a shit about her. We’re happy she was stripped of her committee assignments, we’d like to see her thrown out of Congress and returned to whatever shadow dimension she emerged from, we wouldn’t mind if her immortal soul suffered for an eternity in Hell — but really, we just don’t give a shit about her.

She’s not the problem.

And neither, at this point, is Donald John Trump.

He never was.

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Ten days in, and here we are.

Pretty much as expected, really. We were promised a wave of executive orders, and we got them. We were promised time to think about things not relating to an idiot tinpot wannabe dictator, and we got that.

And if Republicans didn’t exactly promise they would try to sweep the Capitol siege under the rug, we’re not surprised we’re getting that, too.

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Then came a quiet morning when Mr. Biden opened a door on the north side. A warm draft of rising air blew softly through the Capitol cellar. The baby Bernies felt the warm updraft. One Bernie climbed to the top of the security fence. Then it did something that came as a great surprise to Wilbur.

The Bernie stood on its head, pointed its mittens in the air, and let loose a cloud of thick yarn. The yarn formed a balloon. As Wilbur watched, the Bernie let go of the fence and rose into the air.

“Good-bye!” it said, as it sailed past the Washington Monument.

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You can’t listen to them.

You can’t take their word for it. You can’t stroll into that midwest diner, ask them what’s up, expect them to know their own souls.

They’re not going to be honest with you. They’re not being honest with themselves. They don’t know how. They don’t have to be. They weren’t raised that way. It’s not the world they were handed.

A world of their unquestioned dominance. A world theirs by birth. Born alpha dog. Born apex predator.

A world that doesn’t exist.

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You could feel the ground shifting Wednesday afternoon. Something was different. Something had changed. Wherever this was going, there was no going back.

There would be consequences. Maybe not the kind we’d like, maybe not as soon as we’d like, but consequences nevertheless. Whatever the future was going to be, it would be something else now. The future would now be something that included this in the past.

The warnings had come true. Warnings for years, decades, generations. Warnings that if you kept looking the other way, kept letting things slide, kept letting them have their heads, kept moving on, this — this! — would happen.

And then it did.

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