In an essay in the Ohio Capital Journal, David DeWitt writes that in January 2020, he wrote about how politics of stupidity and crankery in America was degrading us as a society and as human beings. He concludes his latest piece with, “America’s love affair with swaggering ignorance and confident stupidity continues to reach awful new heights. The bill will come due. The piper will need to be paid. The damage will be extensive.” As if to second DeWitt’s statement, Donald Trump on Saturday made his own statement that stunned observers, in posting on social media, “He who saves his Country does not violate any law.” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes attributes this loosely to both France’s King Louis XIV, and Navarre, saying, “L’etat c’est moi,” translation being “I myself am the nation.” Columnist Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times called it “the single most un-American and anti-Constitutional statement ever uttered by an American president.” Conservative anti-Trumper Bill Kristol said, “We’re getting into real Führerprinzip territory here.” Tech reporter Matt Novak offered, “Dude is quoting Napoleon now. When do we get to the exile portion of the Napoleon timeline?” In a darker vein, writer and actor Bill Corbett adds, “Trump making an excellent argument for his own assassination — good one, dummy!”

In a podcast interview prior to the election, Trump’s FBI deputy director, Andrew McCabe who was fired in 2018, was asked if he thought Trump is a Russian asset, to which he answered, “I do, I do. I don’t know if I would characterize it as an active, recruited, knowing asset in the way people in the intelligence community think of that term…he has given us many reasons to question his approach to the Russia problem, and I think his approach to interacting with Putin, be it phone calls, face-to-face meetings, the things he has said in public about Putin, all raise significant questions.” McCabe also questioned Trump’s approach to his supporting Ukraine and NATO in the face of Russia’s aggression, and certainly in light of his claim that Russia would have avoided aggressive action into its neighboring country had he been president. Trump still maintains that all he wants is “peace — and Ukraine’s rare metals deposits — negotiate, and get this over with!” We have to remember Kamala Harris ridiculing Trump during their presidential debate that his so-called friendship with a known dictator would only result with his being eaten for lunch. McCabe ended his interview, declaring that Russia’s “interest is just simply sowing chaos and division and polarization. If they can do that, it’s a win. If they can actually hurt a candidate they don’t like, or help one that they do like, that’s an even bigger win.” Score one for the dictator(s)!

The Daily Beast columnist, Julia Davis, who monitors Russian media, has reported that there is glee in the Kremlin regarding Trump’s cabinet choices, an ominous sign for the USA. Vladimir Solovyov, on his show ‘Sunday,’ said, “What an excellent team is coming along with Trump! Not with respect to Ukraine, but as far as everything else goes. If they are allowed to get in, they will quickly dismantle America, brick by brick. They are so great.” TV host Olga Skabeeva enthusiastically pronounced the cabinet picks, “…totally wonderful!” And her husband, Evgeny Popov who is host of Russia’s ‘60 Minutes,’ agreed, calling Trump’s selections his “…radical dream team. All of them personally despise Zelensky,” and on a cautionary note adds, “They aren’t friends of Russia, except for Tulsi Gabbard.” How does that phrase go — ‘Forewarned is fore…‘ — never mind! Russia’s predictions are already being borne out by the actions of those put in place by the GOP-dominated Senate, hellbent on undermining the very agencies they ‘lead,’ brick-by-brick, stone-by-stone. Ja’han Jones of MSNBC says, “Trump is constructing a kakistocracy — a government filled with incompetent or otherwise unsuitable characters. And based on Russian state TV, the Kremlin couldn’t be happier.”

Julia writes that Moscow was initially unsettled by Trump’s stern proclamations regarding the Russia/Ukraine impasse, but his latest actions have transformed into pure joy as he self-destructs America’s standing as a global superpower. The new-old president is also well into his plan to undermine international relationships with our long-standing allies, exceeding Russian expectations. Propagandist Vladimir Solovyov gloated over these developments, saying, “It’s awesome, right? The Canadians and the Mexicans thought all was well, but Trump told them ‘By the way, I don’t like you either.'” This statement provoked jolly laughter from the other pundits in the studio. Putin called President Zelensky’s tenure “illegitimate,” prompting US envoy Keith Kellogg to suggest Ukraine hold a presidential election since “…most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important to do so.” Solovyov takes this as a US adoption of the Russian view, and Dean Henry Sardaryan of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations agrees that serious efforts behind the scenes have led to a seismic shift in the American approach. Sardaryan has interpreted words of Secretary of State Rubio to mean the US is abdicating its global leadership position in favor of multipolarity, with Tucker Carlson being “unleashed” to publicly “demolish Zelensky” in order to sway citizens to accept Trump’s future decisions toward Ukraine. Moscow is looking forward to stepping into the void left by the demise of USAID, by creating a tool to exercise influence over other countries, much like China has been doing for years.

By Trump’s outright rejection of bipartisanship in his first term, political scientist Dmitry Evstafiev had predicted the disintegration of existing political institutions in the USA, to be replaced by an authoritarian system — now, to the delight of Russian experts, Trump isn’t letting them down. Andrey Sidorov notes that the US is rapidly moving into a dictatorship, with Americans unable to reverse this trajectory by the usual democratic means. Current Russian prediction for the US: “everything is excellent.” Co-president Elon Musk has co-president Trump’s blessing to dismantle the government and to gut popular programs — a decision that will likely come back to haunt him says the Washington Post’s Philip Bump. Bump suggests Musk is taking his cues from X, where he has cast himself as the main character in a rightwing bubble, and he is being disingenuous or ignorant if he believes his unscientific polls on the platform represent the desires of Americans — not just his echo chamber. According to Bump, Musk seems to believe Americans want less out of government, rather than better — a fatal misreading. “While a significant portion of those who did vote approved of the idea that Trump would overhaul the government, many were voting for other reasons. There’s a reason the bureaucracy exists at the scale it does, which is that constituencies and advocates have convinced representatives that those programs are worth funding. As Musk himself pointed out, when funding stops, complaints start. We can expect a staggering number of complaints over the coming months.” And it has already started — several Red States have dared to criticize the gutting of programs. Musk is following the same stratagems as when he took over Twitter, by slashing budgets, engaging in massive layoffs, while ignoring the long term effects to create his own world, rather than the one the end users want. Bump cautions, “…this is governance, not a right-wing social club. If X crashes, users shrug. If the government crashes, people die. The former is not good for business. The latter is not good for politicians.”

On ‘The Last Word,’ MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell had much to say about the joint Trump/Musk Oval Office press conference last week, pointing out the power displayed by Musk over the sitting president. Elon stood beside the Resolute desk expounding to the press (with 3,666 words), and a seated Trump (who spoke only 2,487 words), that the non-official DOGE is saving American taxpayers trillions of dollars — no breakdown, just take his word for it and ignore the suffering and chaos. O’Donnell described the scene as “a picture of presidential subservience the likes of which we have never seen, the most powerless image of a President of the United States ever created by a camera.” The t-shirted, MAGA-hatted Musk conveyed, with his son X in tow, without saying a word, that “Donald Trump is not the boss of me.” Trump’s first-term Vice President Mike Pence “never had a day like that in the Oval Office with Donald Trump,” and current VP JD Vance “will never have a day like that in the Oval Office with Donald Trump because Donald Trump is the boss of JD Vance,” O’Donnell added. To top it off, Musk’s son was rumored to have admonished Trump with, “Shush your mouth,” when he started to speak. Roy Wood, Jr. appeared on the ‘Daily Show’ giving his take on how much control President Trump has over the DOGE leader as he runs roughshod over the federal government, saying, “I look at this Trump-Elon relationship — you ever had a homeboy who had a girlfriend nobody liked? And the friend has to act as if ‘Oh, we’re fine. We’re happy.’ It is going to take a consecutive series of brave people to keep this administration from going off the rails. You’re going to need a bunch of brave judges because he’s going to come for their heads, too.”

In the aftermath of the joint Oval Office press conference, where Trump also made a big show of signing various death sentences for government agencies, satirist Andy Borowitz wrote a dateline Washington coverage in his The Borowitz Report: “Boasting that it was ‘like taking candy from a baby,’ on Wednesday Elon Musk tricked Donald J Trump into signing a reverse mortgage on the White House. ‘All these years, you’ve fixed it, you’ve taken care of it. Maybe it’s time for your home to start taking care of you. There you go,’ he whispered into Trump’s ear, putting the pen in his tiny hand. Assuming ownership of the White House was just the latest real estate coup for Musk, who earlier in the week tricked Trump into signing over the deed to Mar-a-Lago.”

Former RNC chairman and current MSNBC host, Michael Steele, took a Saturday morning discussion into a blistering tirade against both Democrats and Republicans for groveling beneath Donald Trump’s relentless destruction of democracy. ‘Weekend‘ co-host Alicia Menendez read from The Nation’s recent report which said “the courts cannot save us,” spurring Steele to hit the ceiling. Co-host Symone Sanders Townsend asked him, “What would you have us do?” Steele blasted back, “I would like you to show that you give a damn! That you got a little emotion about the fact that people are losing their jobs indiscriminately. That this individual sitting down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has given absolute power to one man who brings his son into the Oval Office, whose son says to him, ‘You’re not the president, you shouldn’t be in that chair.’ Now, where did he get that from? He got it from his daddy, because that’s what his daddy thinks of the man who brought him into the Oval Office. So, I’d just like to see somebody wake the hell up and get excited about the fact that your country is under assault! They’re not at the gate anymore, they’re in your bedrooms, they’re in your living rooms, they’re in your businesses, they got your data, they got all your stuff. Elon Musk has his tentacles in everything you’re doing, not just off of X, but now he’s in the Treasury Department, he’s in the Labor Department, he’s in the Department of Homeland Security and nobody seems to give a damn, so that’s all I want. Somebody to show that they care enough to get off their fat ass and say something about it.” When co-host Menendez attempted to interject and point the finger at complicit Republicans, Steele went off again, “The hell with Republicans! They’re not going to do anything, they’re the problem!”

Along with Democrats, Alaska’s conservative Senator Lisa Murkowski is lamenting and criticizing the Trump administrations’s terminating the employment of about 200,000 civil service workers who were in their probationary periods. Murkowski warned of negative repercussions in Alaska with potentially 100 or so in her state being fired. She posted on X, “Any of these abrupt terminations will do more harm than good, stunting opportunities in Alaska and leaving holes in our communities,” continuing that she shares “the administration’s goal of reducing the size of federal government, but this approach is bringing confusion, anxiety, and now trauma to our civil servants.” Some X users were not having her “whining,” and arguing that she and her party are the ones inflicting damage. One post reads, “Your party & you propping Trump up has allowed this to happen. Stop whining about something you enabled.” Another reads, “I didn’t think the leopard would eat MY face,” while another reads, “You failed Alaskans and all Americans by voting for his Russian assets, Fox pundits, election deniers, conspiracy theorists, useful idiots, DOGE and other frauds. What could possibly go wrong?”

Steve Schmidt wrote in his The Warning blog that it was clear in watching Trump’s meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, the king was “struggling to maintain his composure and dignity as the American president blustered like a fool about a vision for the future of the world that is both utterly insane, and would be a disaster for the USA, Israel, Egypt, Europe, Jordan and the Palestinian people, who would live in ignominy as a crime against humanity,” getting resettled from their homeland. “It is also a repudiation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, architected by the US. Think about the arrogance at hand. We are witnessing a historic moment. Before it is over, we will all have a role to play. Trust me on this. The king knows what is coming. He just doesn’t know what to say. What can be said? Whatever must be said, it must be said by an American first. The world is waiting to hear a sound, even if it is a whisper. It is the sound of an opposition stirring that makes clear that liberty is not a hollow faith. Or is it?”

On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon joked that on Valentine’s Day Melania asked Donald if he forgot again. He was quick to say, “Oh no — I got Elon something.” And Andy Borowitz strikes again, posting, “Melania Trump has determined that the Valentine’s Day card she received on Friday could not possibly be from her husband because her name was spelled correctly, the First Lady has confirmed. ‘If it spelled ‘Melanie,’ ‘Melanin,’ or ‘Malala,’ then I’d know it from him,’ she said. ‘It was signed ‘the President,’ she continued. ‘So guess it from Elon. I wish Justin Trudeau send me card one day,’ she added wistfully. ‘That be best.'”