The roar of outrage has subsided to a murmur as Americans get used to having Trump as their president.

I see little or nothing in today’s news about the various “investigations”  supposedly under way. No word from Robert Mueller. No word from all those committees in the House and the Senate.

It seems the crime of the century will go unpunished as it fades from public memory and the public consciousness.

Surely, there can no longer be any doubt that Trump and his minions conspired with Putin and his minions to subvert last November’s presidential election?

Surely, it’s obvious that Trump attempted to obstruct investigation of that conspiracy?

I don’t know what more evidence needs to be revealed. What can possibly be left for Mueller or the congressional committees to find out before they speak out?

We the people seem powerless. This first-world democracy has no previous experience with a third-world presidency,  In a third world country, the populace would be in the streets, the armed forces in revolt, the despot and his gang of thieves in flight.

But that kind of thing doesn’t happen in modern America.

Today’s Americans are not the same breed as the colonists who took arms against an oppressive king. Today’s Americans think of their own self interest above all. They worry about the rent and the groceries, not the ship of state.

Yes, there is a minority that still protests. There are even some folks who bluister and threaten.  But they, too, will eventually see the futility of their protest.

For Trump’s audacity has triumphed after all.

With a gerrymandered Republican Congress, he is above the law. He cannot be criminally charged. And he will not be impeached.

The nation is quietly adjusting to a new standard of ethics, one in which cheating is OK if you can get away with it, where dirty tricks are to be admired and taking advantage of another’s trust is the smart thing to do.