WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2026
Also, the president's Waterloo: Last evening, starting at 10 o'clock, Lawrence O'Donnel spent an hour winning the Pulitzer Prize.
We refer to the Pulitzer Prize for Not Being Asleep at The Wheel While Being Powder Blue. Before we describe O'Donnell's performance, let's return to one of the columns which appeared, over the weekend, at the New York Times.
As we noted in Monday's report, we thought we heard a familiar song as we read a few of those columns. In one column, Jamelle Bouie seemed to be dreaming a pleasant dream about a certain president's recent drop in the polls.
"Minneapolis May Be Trump’s Gettysburg," the headline on the column said. The president's current decline may be his Gettysburg—perhaps even his Waterloo!
We thought we heard a familiar old song sung Blue. We thought we possibly heard that same song in the new column by Ezra Klein.
"Trump Has Overwhelmed Himself," the headline said on that column.
At this site, we recalled the way Candidate Trump had supposedly doomed himself with what he said about John McCain! Also, we recalled the way he had doomed himself with what he said to Billy Bush on that Access Hollywood videotape!
We Blues! We've been singing that song of easy escape since at least 2015. As we read those two columns—even as we read this guest essay by Ruth Ben-Ghiat—we thought we might be hearing the newest version of that same old tribal song.
(At one point, we even flashed on On The Beach, the four major stars 1959 film about the last few months of human life after a nuclear war. That's the danger we apparently saw in the revival of that pleasing old song.)
Will reaction to the fatal shooting of Michael Pretti prove to be the downfall of the sitting president? Everything is possible!
Without question, that decline could point the way to victory by Democrats in this year's congressional elections. But what happens after that?
Before we consider O'Donnell's performance, let's turn to several striking comments in the three columns we've mentioned. We'll start with the column by Bouie, in which he offers this portrait of MAGA defeat:
Minneapolis May Be Trump’s Gettysburg
[...]
The result was a catastrophic defeat for the Confederacy. Lee lost the initiative and would spend the rest of the war fighting on the defensive, unable to wage another strategic campaign. The Confederacy would not win foreign recognition, leaving it helpless against a Union blockade. And even with the tremendous loss of life—the Union Army suffered more than 23,000 casualties over three days of battle—the Northern public would be reinvigorated by victory, ready to continue the fight.
ICE and C.B.P. still roam the streets, and Trump’s authoritarian aspirations have not dimmed. But surveying the wreckage of Operation Metro Surge—of this reactionary administration’s crushing defeat at the hands of another band of tenacious Northerners—it does look to me like MAGA’s Gettysburg.
Everything is possible (at least until it isn't)! That said, that sounds a bit like wishful thinking. We almost thought we heard the lilt of a very old tribal song.
Full disclosure! Assuming our scheduled elections take place this fall, MAGA may well get crushed—but President Trump will remain in the Oval Office! And in her balanced, academic presentation, Professor Ben-Ghiat makes a significant claim:
History Shows Trump’s Worst Impulses May Backfire on Him
[...]
“I follow my instincts, and I am never wrong,” said the Italian Fascist dictator Mussolini, shortly before he invaded Ethiopia in 1935. That war and Italy’s ensuing occupation initially made him popular at home, further inflating his ego, but eventually contributed to the bankruptcy of the Italian state.
[...]
It is well documented that strongmen are at their most dangerous when they feel threatened. That is why, as popular discontent with the Trump administration’s actions deepens, Americans should brace for heightened militarized domestic repression and more imperialist aggression abroad.
"I am never wrong," Mussolini said. President Trump makes similar statements pretty much every day of the week.
Could a type of (clinically diagnosable) delusion be present when he makes such grandiose claims? We can't answer that question, but Ben-Ghiat makes a claim which we ourselves have suggested in the past:
Strongmen are at their most dangerous when they feel threatened!
If MAGA does get mauled this November, how might the sitting president react? It would be a peculiar type of Gettysburg which led our struggling nation to "heightened militarized domestic repression and more imperialist aggression abroad."
It seemed to us—we could be wrong!—that Bouie wasn't recognizing the full sweep of the possibilities at this dangerous time. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein, like Bouie, is very smart—but we thought the highlighted assertion was flatly, baldly inaccurate:
Trump Has Overwhelmed Himself
[...]
This is a presidency that is, by any measure, failing. Trump is unpopular; his brutality and his tariffs have turned immigration and affordability, once among of his strongest issues, into liabilities. Trump’s opposition is increasingly united and mobilized; Democrats are besting Republicans in elections all across the country and disciplined, brave, beautiful protest movements have emerged in the cities ICE has sought to occupy.
From what planet does that assertion hail? By the apparent "measure" of the sitting president, his presidency isn't failing at all On the planet where he seems to live, his presidency continues to be a miraculous success.
(Clinical) delusion being what it is, we ourselves don't doubt the possibility that the sitting president truly believes his claims about his astounding success. For example, we don't doubt the possibility that he really does believe that he won the 2020 election!
Does he really believe such things? On this campus, we have no idea, in part because Klein and Bouie have joined the rest of the guild in agreeing that medical specialists must never be asked to share what they know about the workings of (diagnosable) "delusional disorder."
We Blues! When we sing our tribal songs, echoing Achilles of old, we agree that such possibilities must not impinge on our tribal pleasure. We'll suggest that you ponder this:
As you may know, "Song Sung Blue" was and is one of Neil Diamond's most popular songs. To see him perform it, click here.
(We remember our conversation, long ago, with our friend, the comedian [NAME WITHHELD], in which we savants agreed—Diamond could sing any page in the phone book and make it sound profound. It's an amazing performance skill—a skill of high persuasion.)
In his popular "Song Sung Blue," Diamond was talking about a different kind of blue song. But in his lyrics, one key phrase almost seems to ring a bell in the present day:
Song Sung Blue
[...]
Funny thing, but you can sing it with a cry in your voice
And before you know it you get to feeling good
You simply got no choice...
Before you know it, you get to feeling good! Seeking such a type of deliverance is a well-known human tendency.
We still haven't mentioned the way O'Donnell won the Pulitzer Prize last night. Also, we haven't had time to comment on the pathetic omissions which can be ascribed to this morning's report in the New York Times:
Also, we haven't mentioned that other column from the New York Times, the column by David French. That column also appeared this weekend. Yesterday, it appeared in print editions of the Times.
Blue Americans won't get to "feelin' good" in the course of French's column. French says the signs are abundantly clear—the sitting president isn't planning to permit a normal set of congressional elections to take place this year.
French could always be wrong, of course—but he could also be right. We recently read this nostrum somewhere:
Strongmen are at their most dangerous when they feel threatened.
Attention, Blues! Our journalistic elites have failed us every step of the way. That dates all the way back to the invention of the Whitewater pseudo-scandal (now long forgotten), followed by the twenty-month war against Candidate Gore.
That said, what happens in the mainstream press corps' guild stays inside the guild—and every guild member knows he or she must abide by that rule.
We thought we heard a song sung Blue. Is there any possible chance that we're being ill-served again?
Tomorrow: What Lawrence O'Donnell (and only O'Donnell) correctly and angrily did
This afternoon: Gutfeld, off the wagon
In our view, a brilliant self-portrait: We never were Neil Diamond fans. But has anyone ever defined himself more brilliantly, or more concisely, than he did right here?
I Am, I Said
[...]
Did you ever read about the frog
Who dreamed of being a king
And then became one?
Well except for the names
And a few other changes,
If you talk about me,
The story's the same one...
Wow! Translation, within the context of the song:
Today, I'm a giant star in L.A.—but that's not who I actually am!
