The recent college graduate who still lives in my house came storming into my bedroom last week to announce the news that had just broken. “Jimmy Kimmel’s been fired for comments about Charlie Kirk!” she said. “It’s going crazy online.”

 I immediately got online myself to get more details than my daughter ever tends to be bothered with. I read and heard about Kimmel’s initial sympathies to Charlie Kirk‘s widow, and I heard the so-called offending joke. Then I read about the FCC Commissioner’s comments, and I already knew about the impending ABC-affiliate-owning Nexstar’s merger with Tegna that required FCC approval. The corporate capitulation to silence Kimmel all made sense.

I had an initial pang of fury, but it was just a pang, and it didn’t even last a full minute. The same thing happened to Stephen Colbert for essentially the same reason. It’s all part of the new norm that the non-Maga part of the country is more or less forced to lie down for. Given what had been said in the offending joke, I also thought it best to take a beat and see if the suspension did in fact become a firing.

To the pleasant surprise of many people who are left of center, it was outrage from the right at being too thin-skinned and censorship-happy that stopped the Kimmel suspension celebration at the White House. Additionally, the boycotts of anything related to Disney, which owns ABC, provided a monetary about-face greater than the initial financial motivation that led to Kimmel being pulled off the air in the first place. The ABC parent company has quite a lot to boycott if people are looking to make their voices heard. And they were. And they did.

If there is a turning point, an emergency brake on the runaway train to authoritarianism, Jimmy Kimmel‘s return monologue might just be it. It was full of humility, apology and compassion, alongside righteousness and satisfaction. It was as good as it gets – with the ratings to prove it.

But there can’t be a triumph these days it seems, without another outrage following closely on its heels. Former FBI director, James Comey was indicted for congressional testimony given almost five years ago to the day, just in time to beat the statute of limitations.

There’s a fair amount of chatter on the airwaves and on social media that Comey’s indictment puts us a step deeper into the world of fascist behavior. But here too we are seeing repeat behavior. We should’ve predicted this would be coming when the FBI turned former National Security Advisor John Bolton‘s house upside down. Neither thing is supposed to happen in our great constitutional republic. But it’s now quaint to talk about what’s supposed to be.

Salvation from complete descent appears to lay in the hands of two groups of people: the president’s current or recent supporters who oppose egregiously-unlawful choices, or those looking to become wealthier at any cost. MAGA-supporters and unbridled capitalists are why the country is living this white-supremacist injected, anti-science, anti-constitution, anti-common decency nightmare. They were enough to bring home the electoral college.

Yes, Jimmy Kimmel is back but James Comey will soon be on trial, thanks to an Eastern Virginia grand jury, rather than a Democrat-leaning District of Columbia one. Are the scales of demise a little bit more balanced at the moment? Who knows? But its compelling to hope that they are. If just for a moment.