And yet—systems are maintaining. It’s as if sane, good people have set themselves to making sure everything is smooth, not endangered by a mad person. Perhaps this has to do with some of those who have been endlessly put down the past five years—governmental servants. The sober, boring people who don’t say they’re patriots but are patriots. I have a feeling we will look back—in time, after journalists and historians do their work—and find that some very specific people were deeply protective of their country. And maybe the 25th Amendment figuratively kicked in, informally, almost spontaneously, quietly. I am guessing a network of souls are quietly doing their jobs, establishing protocols of safety, wordlessly nodding as they keep their hand on the tiller. They’ve taken the keys from the drunk, so quietly he doesn’t even know. I’m imagining a mix of people—deputy secretaries and assistants to assistants and generals and some elected officials. Nancy Pelosi nattered on about how she’s on the horn with the Joint Chiefs, but beyond that no mistakes seem to have been made, and at least she stopped.

I just have a feeling our much-maligned establishments are saving the day. A former cabinet official said to me this week, “Trump never understood our institutions.” He never understood how strong and deeply layered they are. The agencies held, the military, the courts. Because Mr. Trump is purely transactional, he thought if he appointed Neil, Brett and Amy, they’d naturally do his bidding because that’s how the world works. But it’s not always how the world works. This week the Supreme Court blandly refused to fast-track his latest election appeal. They did it quietly, without comment.

I have a feeling there was a lot of quiet stature around us all along.

And they were quietly thinking: Don’t mess with my country. But they didn’t say mess.