At first blush, you might think last week’s top narrative at Daily Kos was simply that Donald Trump is terrible. Yawn. We know.
But that wasn’t really the story. The deeper thread running through the week was that the people in charge are desperate to project strength while behaving (thankfully!) like unserious people.
Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union Address before a Joint Session of Congress on Feb. 24.
Most of that played out during Trump’s State of the Union, where he declared that “the state of the union has never been stronger” before spending nearly two hours describing a dystopian, gory hellscape of immigrants, Iran, Democrats, and whatever else wandered into his grievance stream.
It was dark, rambling, and wildly disconnected from the one thing voters actually care about: affordability and the economy.
Republicans gave him standing ovation after standing ovation, but beneath the applause there’s an obvious reality: their leader cannot focus on the issues that have already cost them politically in off-year and special elections. Trump loves the performance of leadership. He has little interest in the work of it.
And that unseriousness wasn’t confined to one speech. It radiates outward.
It’s the FBI director chugging beer in Italy while crises mount at home. It’s Lara Trump boasting about “the most transparent president” while the press is physically shown the door. It’s conservative Supreme Court justices using a tariff decision to snipe at one another.
This isn’t just authoritarianism. It’s unserious authoritarianism. They’re consolidating power while acting like they’re hosting a frat party.
And voters are noticing. One in five Trump voters now say they regret their vote. A pre–State of the Union CBS poll found 60% of voters think Trump is full of it when he talks about the economy and inflation.
They have power. What they don’t have is credibility. And that gap is growing.
Normally, behavior like this would carry immediate political consequences. But here’s where the second layer kicks in: much of the institutional ecosystem exists to cushion their fall. For example, people associated with Jeffrey Epstein are facing consequences in the rest of the world, but here at home? They remain safely in power. And when Trump delivers a speech drenched in grievance and fantasy, major outlets file it down into something respectable.
The absurd becomes normalized. The lies become “messaging.” The chaos becomes “strategy.” That laundering process doesn’t make the behavior less reckless, it just makes it easier for the chaos agents to survive.
But even with that protection, the cracks are widening.
The right’s favorite “journalists” keep humiliating themselves. Influencers turn on each other. Factions fight publicly over who gets to define the movement. Trump barrels ahead without regard for vulnerable Republicans staring down difficult midterms. RFK Jr’s MAHA conspiracy nuts are struggling to remain relevant in the GOP machine.
Take the spectacular meltdown between Candace Owens and Erika Kirk. What started as yet another performative outrage cycle spiraled into a full-blown right-wing civil war, complete with personal attacks and purity tests. When a movement built on grievance runs short on external enemies, it inevitably starts devouring its own.
For all the talk of dominance, this doesn’t look like a confident governing coalition. It looks brittle. It looks defensive. It’s what happens when the worst people gain power, but don’t have the smarts or skills to truly take advantage. We are so lucky they are this stupid.
Even at the state and local level, there are signs of strain. In Texas, residents of one town are rebelling against a proposed Charlie Kirk memorial. And statewide, Democrats are making noise, threatening to turn their U.S. Senate race into a true battleground. The culture war machine looks less inevitable when it runs headfirst into actual communities.
That tension—between their consolidation of authority and their visible dysfunction—defined the week. And it’s what becomes clear when you zoom out from the daily outrage and look at the broader conversation unfolding in real time.
