The article itself is so well written, really gets across the overall mood. 

 The last lines are especially suggestive

Events that would ordinarily be open to press, such as ceremonies awarding the Medal of Freedom and National Medal of Arts, have been limited to only government cameras.

According to one official, aides worried that Trump might respond off-the-cuff to a question about the riots and veer from the carefully scripted comments condemning the actions. They determined it was better to limit Trump's opportunities before the media.

That he would obey and not appear unscripted, instead of challenging that, suggests he is starting to fear the coming legal crackdown, coming out of the cognitive dissonance of feeling the ever powerful stable genius who can manipulate anything, at least a bit. I suspect the social media banning has had some affect on that, too, as Twitter was what he was used to using as a tool, and it's not easy to switch to something else and feel as confident as he did there. (Think of all the TV intervies where he really screwed up for himself, like the one on the dementia test....he wants a sendoff from a crowd of fans cause he's used to doing that too.)

Voting as twisted instrument

Politicizing GSA? Why not

https://www.govexec.com/management/2021/01/gsa-administrator-resigns/171...