How Three Geniuses See The Current Situation February 7, 2025 Garry Kasparov’s Take This will be dismissed as “hysteria” like many of my warnings about Trump and Musk that are coming true. But this doesn’t end with fights over top-secret documents, budget cuts, and unaccountable agents taking over. It ends with who has the guns when they won’t listen to the judges. There are many steps between here and there, of course. But eventually they remove enough judges, refuse any access or challenges, and simply ignore the law and court orders the way they’re ignoring Congress now. What then? → Putin refugee Kasparov (KAH-spar-off) — for 255 months the World Chess Champion — knows something about thinking a few moves ahead. Fareed Zakaria’s Take From Gaza to tariffs to gutting USAID, Trump’s team is struggling to explain away bad policies . . . With the abrupt dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Trump’s supporters scrambled to adjust. Secretary of State Marco Rubio quickly blasted the agency, saying it was out of control and unresponsive. This was the same agency he had repeatedly posted in favor of over the years, written about in his book with pride and admiration, and recommended for funding increases to President Joe Biden. . . . Trump’s White House is now a court, and his courtiers scurry around, aware that the mercurial monarch might change his mind at any time. “TikTok is terrible!” can suddenly become “TikTok is great!” — and they need to pivot quickly. It reminds one of the court of Henry VIII, who went from being the greatest defender of the Catholic Church to a vicious opponent because he wanted an annulment that the pope would not sanction. (One man who refused to play the game, Sir Thomas More, had his head chopped off.) The reason Trump forces aides and supporters to say things they know are false is to enforce a regime in which loyalty is paramount, overriding facts, overriding long-held convictions. . . . This might seem like an amusing spectacle, but there is a real cost. In the case of USAID, it will translate into death and despair for millions of the poorest people on the planet. → Zakaria (whose name I trust you can pronounce from having seen him every Sunday on TV) was — among so much else in his astonishing resume — named managing editor of Foreign Affairs at the age of 28. Elon Musk’s Take I freely admit he, too, is a genius. Only — it’s becoming all too clear — a genius whose values do not align with most of ours. And by “ours” I’m including most Republicans, who are not white supremacists; along with most Democrats and Independents. I have always found it troubling that the President of the United States kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. But now this: The shadow president of the United States is a neo-Nazi. For real. Watch at least the first 90 seconds . . . and then I think you may want to go back and watch from the beginning. It’s even worse than we thought. Join Indivisible! Take action! Join Field Team 6!