When news of the Ukraine call and efforts to solicit foreign intelligence on the Biden’s first broke, my wife said, “This feels different.” Lili Loofbourow does a terrific job describing this change in the atmosphere in her latest piece in Slate:

For three years, the right has been defending Donald Trump’s actions with smugness and swagger. For three years, the left has been issuing strident and sometimes desperate condemnations of violations by the president. As political thermometers go, the way people talk is a slippery and ineffable measure. But political discourse has a subtext: The frames people choose reflect who has power and who doesn’t—or who thinks they have it, which sometimes amounts to the same thing. For a long time now, the right has held this particular set of cards. You see it in the easy dismissals, the eyerolls and chuckles at serious criticisms, the pleasure in watching “libs” be “owned” or “triggered,” the general, luxurious unconcern.

It struck me after news of Vice President Pence’s motorcade trip to Mackinac Island— an island that has barred all but emergency and construction vehicles since 1898– that this administration’s informal motto is, “You can’t stop us.” Democrats, norms, regulation: those are for other people. And your concerns and objections? We don’t have to care.

Now, though it feels like things are changing. If the Democrats hold steady, if White House staff and people in Justice and State continue turning on each other, and if a few more senators or cabinet officials start to look like they’re calculating when it’s time to turn on Trump, things could change even faster.