A figurative noose is tightening around Donald Trump's neck.

The sweet thing is that he knows it. The desperado is shrewd enough to sense his day is done.

Let's count the knots. Some are political, some are legal.

We already know the dots add up to a portrait of a screaming, swearing president who tried to overthrow the government by force.

The crackerjack House select committee on the mob attack on the Capitol is tying Trumpian knots in public opinion. Hearing by hearing, witness by witness, they're telling a sordid story nobody could make up. Thursday in primetime will conclude the best summer true crime story ever.

I mean the noose of justice, of course, not a noose and gallows, which Trump's armed mob brought to "Hang Mike Pence" at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump's vice president was in grave danger that day.

The tables have turned.

In real time, Trump suggested Pence might "deserve" it. For Pence refused to play his part in the violent conspiracy to hold onto presidential power — the first such plot in American history.

Like a Roman emperor, Trump fell under a depraved spell at the crowd size. The 30,000 marching to storm the Capitol thrilled him.

As promised, the deadly scene was "wild" when vast throngs crawled up terrace steps and walls, broke glass on marble floors and rushed the chambers of Congress. The House and Senate were in, certifying the winner of the 2020 election in a constitutional ritual.

In a long day's journey after midnight, the winner was Joseph Biden.

Now Trump's political hold is waning, with a few chosen candidates losing.

Nearly half of Republican primary voters oppose Trump running for a second term, a New York Times poll found. After all, he lost the popular vote twice, in 2016 and 2020.

Even among his sheeplike Republican supporters, "Vote to Keep Me Out of Prison" is a loser's slogan. Come a year from now, fresh blood will sell better than a mean old man. His party may flock to a mean young man, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Frankly, a lust for revenge and a wish to escape the noose of justice won't play to the wider American public, exhausted by Trump's four years of fecklessness in office.

If you look at the legal jeopardy Trump faces, it's no wonder why he wants to run early for president in the 2024 election and escape the law behind the White House walls.

Looming on the horizon is a criminal case. In Georgia, a special grand jury is investigating whether Trump and allies tried to undo the 2020 election result. Biden won the state.

Trump directly called a Georgia official to tell him the exact margin of victory he needed: 11,780 votes. Brazen is his brand. He applied the same brutal scheming to democracy that he used in business — and it almost worked.

The Republican governor, Brian Kemp, made an enemy out of Trump by not backing him up. Kemp won reelection easily.

In New York, Trump is in rising waters for his business practices, especially in taxation. (That's how authorities got Al Capone.) A civil case is pending, brought by the state attorney general for possible fraudulent reporting on the value of buildings and golf courses.

To pile on, Steve Bannon, a top Trump strategist, is on trial for criminal contempt of Congress.

Author of the crude "American carnage" line in Trump's inaugural speech, Bannon finally agreed to appear before the House select committee.

An extremist, Bannon unbound is a bad look for Trump.

The Justice Department, spurred by the evidence and hard work of the House committee, may just act. Wouldn't that be boffo, Attorney General Merrick Garland?

Indicting Trump for a seditious plot is the decisive act — or knot — in our tragic drama of democracy.

In fact, it's emerged that only the threat of a mass resignation of Justice lawyers kept Trump from appointing a loyalist, Jeffrey Clark, as attorney general to put his planned coup in place.

Chances are, Trump knows the jig is up. He'll never go quietly into the darkness before the dawn. But his day is done.

Jamie Stiehm may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. Follow her on Twitter @JamieStiehm. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit Creators.com

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