THAT’S WHAT ENDED THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, TOO: Roger Kimball: The Trump trial is a precursor to how a republic ends. Not with a bang, but a perversion of the law. “Since the trial is in New York, Judge Merchan will have a reliably anti-Trump jury pool to draw upon, and the circus of the trial is sure to feature lots of histrionics.”

Plus: “Admiral Yamamoto is said to have opined that America could never be successfully invaded because ‘behind every blade of grass’ there was a gun. A well-armed populace is indeed a bulwark against state tyranny. But Yamamoto neglected to consider the possibility that a weaponized one-party state could cow and intimidate the populace to such an extent that its tyranny became a matter of a carefully choreographed takeover of all the institutions of cultural legitimation. That would seem to be the real meaning of the experience we are even now undergoing.”