The grim shift in the Overton window over the last four days

Donald Trump is wasting no time inflicting damage on most fronts

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It’s a done deal, and I’ve noticed a tone in legacy media regarding how things are going indicative of a desire to hew to objectivity, within the context of how their practitioners understand that. I guess that’s their job. But I’m quite sure there’s a suppressed question as they report on one development or another along the lines of, “How do I keep my alarm out of this?”

I’m speaking of the CNN-CBS-Washington Post level. Certainly MSNBC is going to howl and wail the way it has since long before we entered the Age of the Very Stable Genius.

But even fever-swamp outlets with some claim to MSM status are aware that the whole model is headed for dinosaur status, as evidenced by the latest staff cuts at the aforementioned CNN and WaPo.

Within the “conservative media” landscape - whatever that means at this bizarre juncture - there are several ways that what the last half-week has made clear are being interpreted. I want to particularly address National Review - which, I remind you, devoted an entire issue in the spring of 2016 to opposing Trumps’ first candidacy - which, editorially, seems to have settled on a formula of proposing constructive initiatives the VSG could undertake, per the front-page piece as I write this by the nearly-always-weird Henry Olsen, or praise for developments that Precipice also applauds, such as 86ing DEI, mandating traditional architecture for public buildings, and an energy policy based on normal-people (rather than play-like) energy forms, with much less emphasis on less encouraging moves.

The Washington Examiner seems to have settled on a similar positioning.

But this isn’t a post primarily about the media landscape. It’s about what’s actually been happening in the Oval Office and anywhere else the VSG has been in the last four days.

There’s been a hell of a lot more chaff than there has been wheat.

Regarding one of the two global hot spots with the highest stakes for Western civilization’s prospects - that would be Ukraine - he’s going full transactional and morally relativistic right out of the gate:

U.S. President Donald Trump indicated that both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky share the blame for the Ukraine-Russia war in an interview segment with Fox News released on Jan. 23.

The U.S. president, who most recently met Zelensky in Paris in December, criticized his Ukrainian counterpart for resisting Russia at the start of the invasion instead of cutting a deal.

"Zelensky... shouldn’t have allowed this to happen either. He’s no angel," Trump said.

"I could have made that deal so easily, and Zelensky decided that 'I want to fight,'" he commented, adding that Ukraine has been fighting against a "much bigger entity."

. . . "We started pouring equipment... and they (Ukraine) had the bravery to use the equipment, but in the end, it’s a war that has to be settled," Trump said.

Let’s speak plainly. He wants to meet evil halfway. Ukraine, like all nations on Earth, is comprised of fallible human beings, and it’s had its fair share of post-USSR tumult, but Zelensky is clearly a man of courage and integrity. More to the point, it was just sitting there, being a sovereign nation, when Russia seized Crimea in 2014 and launched its full-scale rape in 2022. It was the most blatant violation of the post-WWII international order since, well, WWII.

And we know that Trump gets a thrill up his leg being in the presence of ruthless dictators. He fancies the notion that some of their “strength” will rub off on him. He’s already indicating that he’s ready to resume his sucking up to one of the worst:

U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview on Jan. 23 he intends to again engage North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, signaling a shift from the previous Biden administration.

"I'll reach out to him again," Trump said in the interview with Fox News.

Kim, who Trump lauded as a "smart guy," has become Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key ally in a war against Ukraine, providing ballistic missiles and artillery and sending 12,000 troops to fight in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

"He’s not a religious zealot. He happens to be a smart guy," the U.S. president said, adding that he had good relations with Kim during his first presidential term in 2017-2021.

This is not the place to debate whether the Federal Reserve should exist. It was created in 1913, a year that also saw the imposition of the income tax and the changing of the Senate’s role from representing states to representing individual citizens, much like the House of Representatives. Specifically, the Fed was created in response to recent financial panics. It was done in kind of the same spirit by which the FDIC was created in 1933.

That said, the Fed is an autonomous body.

Squirrel-Hair doesn’t see it that way:

President Donald Trump lobbed his first volley at the Federal Reserve, saying Thursday that he will apply pressure to bring down interest rates.

Speaking via video to an assembly of global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the new president in a wide-ranging policy speech did not mention the Fed by name but made clear he would seek lower rates.

“I’ll demand that interest rates drop immediately,” Trump said. “And likewise, they should be dropping all over the world. Interest rates should follow us all over.”

The comments represented an initial strike at Fed officials, with whom he had a highly contentious relationship during his first term in office. He frequently criticized Chair Jerome Powell, who Trump appointed, on occasion calling policymakers “boneheads” and comparing Powell to a golfer who can’t putt.

Also in that Davos address, he reconfirmed that he’s a full-blown protectionist:

“I’m trying to be constructive because I love Europe. I love the countries of Europe,” he said. “But the processes are very cumbersome. One. And they do treat the United States of America very, very unfairly with the bad taxes and all of the other taxes they impose.”

Two of the world’s top economic officials expressed concern about the impact of new U.S. tariffs Trump said he would impose, warning about the potential economic harm of trade wars.

“We have seen this movie before, in the 1930s,” World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said. She noted that countries backed off from using import taxes to manage trade after the experience of the Great Depression, when tariffs deepened the global downturn.

If the U.S. leader’s talk of tariffs “is a negotiating tool, let’s take a deep breath and wait until that happens,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

European Union Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the 27-nation EU would approach the Trump administration with “a spirit of cooperation” given that the bloc and the United States are strategic allies that together amount to 42% of the world economy.

“We will be seeking engagement and dialogue with the Trump administration and find a constructive way forward,” Dombrovskis said.

That’s the VSG for you. Somebody’s always being unfair to him and the country he perceives the United States to be.

The law-enforcement trade associations in post-America are quickly learning that the VSG’s need for self-glorification outweighs any expression of solidarity with anybody who has supported him:

The largest police union in the U.S. has condemned President Donald Trump for his sweeping pardons of those involved in the January 6 Capitol riot in 2021.

The Fraternal Order of Police, which endorsed Trump in the last three general elections, issued a joint statement with the International Association of Chiefs of Police denouncing the "dangerous message" that pardoning those convicted of assaulting officers sends.

. . . On his first day back in office, Trump issued "full, complete and unconditional" presidential pardons for around 1,500 people convicted in connection with the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Those pardoned or granted commutations include leading figures from the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups convicted of seditious conspiracy, as well as more than 130 individuals convicted of assaulting police officers.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police said they are "deeply discouraged" by the pardons and commutations.

Liz Cheney’s voting record when she was in the House was impeccably conservative, both when her votes coincided with Trump policy and when they didn’t (such as when she rightly voted for impeachment).

But the VSG opines that she belongs in the hoosegow. BTW, Newsweek characterizes his remarks about the J6 committee as unsubstantiated claims. That’s also known as lying through his teeth:

[In] Trump's Meet The Press interview . . . he said: "And [Liz] Cheney was behind it, and so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee. For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail."

During the interview, Trump made unsubstantiated claims about the January 6 Committee, including that they deleted all evidence sent to them and that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected an offer of 10,000 troops to guard the U.S. Capitol ahead of the 2021 riot that saw Trump supporters storm the building.

Newsweek reached out to a media representative for Trump via email for comment.

In the full interview, Trump said, "For what they did," referring to members of the committee, "they should go to jail" for the range of misleading claims he made about them.

Then there’s his hawking of his meme coin as well as fragrances and watches. Statesmanlike stature indeed.

His petty vindictiveness could get some officials from his first administration killed:

President Donald Trump has revoked government security protection for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his top aide, Brian Hook, who have faced threats from Iran since they took hard-line stances on the Islamic Republic during Trump’s first administration.

A congressional staffer and a person familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personal security details, confirmed the change, but neither could offer an explanation. They said that Pompeo and Hook were told of the loss of protection on Wednesday and that it took effect at 11 p.m. that night.

It’s another sign of steps Trump is taking just days into his return to the White House to target those he has perceived as adversaries.

A day earlier, Trump, a Republican, revoked the security clearance and Secret Service protection from John Bolton, who was fired as Trump’s national security adviser during his first term. Bolton later wrote a book whose publication the White House unsuccessfully sought to block on grounds that it disclosed national security information. Bolton, who has been targeted for assassination by Iran, said in a statement that he was disappointed but not surprised by the decision.

That’s the picture of the present moment that needs to be put front and center. Meanness, avarice, incoherence and recklessness.

I don’t give a flying flip about proposals for XYZ number of constructive measures he could take on whatever.

He’s a bad man.

Biden was a bad man.

The new flavor of bad will have darker ramifications, mainly because the VSG has a robust energy level, whereas Biden was too feeble to do such drastic damage.

It is most definitely not morning in post-America.