As the new Trump administration continues to ramp up, we have been watching both the Democrats and the press losing their collective composure on a daily, near hourly, basis. Listening to the outrage-fest from the Left, one would be led to believe that all of the promised mayhem and calamitous results are already playing out, but there appears to be a curious facet to the hysteria. 

The blame for who is behind this continues shifting. The anger in the press has been inflexibly consistent, but they seem perpetually unsure who is responsible.

For over a year - since he announced he would be running for president again - Donald Trump has been assured to be the ruination of this nation. Every promised nefarious result has been listed, ad infinitum: the death of democracy, the end of free elections, the shredding of the Constitution, fascist state rule, and even the arresting of journalists and tossing them into camps. Or worse.

But all of these promises defy a bit of common sense. How can Trump wield all of that power when he is not the one in charge? After all, as we all know, Vladimir Putin is the real leader. That would mean Trump was his puppet dictator in Mussolini-like fashion, which could fit in their dystopian fever dream scenarios, but really does not track with Trump's stated goals – plus Putin coming out to endorse Kamala Harris in the election created a snag in that plot.

In a strong dose of desperation, the Democrats, during the election, kept insisting that Project 2025 was the driving force of the campaign. The originators of that proposal, The Heritage Foundation, were said to be mapping out a plot to renovate the country as we know it for their own craven ends. So once again, Trump was positioned as the despot, all while incapable of thinking for himself and instead carrying out the plans of others.

And then once again this fluid foundation of fascism saw another shift taking place. Late in the election, and then after the win when he was assigned the task of heading up the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk became the scourge of the press, as they insisted he had risen to become the de facto unelected president.

TIME's new cover: Inside Elon Musk's war on Washington https://t.co/95Qictx4zP pic.twitter.com/QZ73CZqtnM

— TIME (@TIME) February 7, 2025

But even this insistence has become a questionable reality. As this week saw the DOGE team becoming exposed, Musk has apparently abdicated his newfound position of president, and the team of 20-somethings has now been declared to be the real people running the country. This makes for a convenient foil for the new outrage of the defunding of agencies, as our journalists appear to be on the side of keeping the wasteful spending in place, a rather odd position to take. But just as the desperation in the press is being exposed further, we got another completely perplexing hot take.

At the Washington Post, it has been glibly declared that Donald Trump - or whoever is in charge - has ushered in the most damaging two weeks to begin a presidency in the history of the country. But this comes with a catch. Or, a caveat…maybe? Forgive us if we sound a bit confused, but that is due to the unclear nature of the complaint from columnist Ruth Marcus. So while this presidential prologue has been declared the worst, it has not exactly been a fascist fortnight witnessed. Apparently Donald Trump has been tyrant-ing completely wrong.

Trump 2.0: The most damaging first two weeks in presidential history
Gift Article:https://t.co/VT1pXdvoDs

— Gary DeVaan 🌊 (@GaryDeVaan) February 5, 2025

See, we have always been under the impression that a totalitarian would be someone who is gathering up as much power as possible and exerting it in an expansive, iron-fist-type manner. It strikes us that “curtailing government’s power” is kinda sort of possibly holding the potential to somehow be considered the polar opposite of authoritarian rule. 

So as we did say, we were investigating who is supposedly running the country into a mountainside, but we need to apologize for the lack of a conclusive summation. We cannot say with certainty who is supposedly ruining the country because the press is having a hard time settling on one name to hold responsible – and even to cite what the damage has been. Once they settle on a target, then maybe we’ll be able to foster the anxiety.