There are multiple currents in rapid motion now as the world careens toward a genuine crisis. There is Trump, Musk and what they are doing to take a wrecking ball to the United States of America from within.

There is the assault on the free press at the heart of Trump’s fascist coup, with the White House stripping the press corps of any semblance of independence and pliant news organizations like NBC and the Washington Post falling in line. 

There is Moscow and Beijing, moving closer together and overseeing the Trump operation with glee, even as the confirmations of Moscow’s historic ownership of Trump, and of the fascist and racist roots of Musk and the phony so-called Christian Nationalist movement are coming out more boldly.

There are Europe’s urgent moves to function in this new environment as Trump and Putin undo the 80-year Atlantic Alliance.

There is a growing mobilization by the saner portion of the American public to react to what is shaping up as even more domestic destabilization than most thought was coming, including huge cuts to vital services and jobs. This blow back, which hopefully is also in its mere infancy, includes shareholders of major companies like Costco defying the mandate to strip diversity, equity and inclusivity initiatives that Trump has demanded, and Jane Fonda’s brilliant speech at the SAG Awards gala last weekend.

(There’s an interesting silence of the MAGA populist base as it finds it’s being screwed royally by Trump and Musk.) 

There is the shameful abdication of any sense of moral obligation by the wealthiest beneficiaries of the American system, Musk, Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and others, maybe with the exception of Warren Buffett.

With developments unfolding faster than any normal person can keep up with, the two most significant developments of the recent days in my view are the revelation by a leading former KGB chief of the recruitment of Trump as an active Russian asset in the mid-1980s, and the most recent assaults on the free press by Trump and Bezos, almost in tandem.

First, Former KGB head Alnur Musayev reported on X this week that in 1987, the KGB’s Department 6 successfully recruited a 40-year-old American businessman named Donald Trump and he was given the code name of Krasnov. The goal of the Department 6 section of the KGB was specifically to recruit American businessmen, he explained.

I have repeatedly reported my finding that an obscure pro-Moscow newsletter, the Executive Intelligence Review, had announced that Moscow liked the prospect of Trump becoming a future U.S. president in 1987 following a visit by Trump to Moscow that year. While it is not fully known what transpired on that trip, it can be surmised that classic KGB “kompromat” methods were involved. At any rate, Trump, upon returning to the U.S., took out full page ads in New York newspapers on some of his pet issues as he began testing the waters for a future in American electoral politics.

Notably, the effort then led to Trump being offered a prime time TV show on NBC that ran for more than a decade, “The Apprentice.” This launched his career in public life in the U.S. One important question is, Who gave him that job?

Second, former Post executive editor Marty Baron has condemned Bezos’ revamp of the paper’s opinions section, saying he was “sad and disgusted” by Bezos’ moves. Bezos said this week he is shifting the paper’s Opinions section to “focus on supporting free markets and personal liberties,” saying pieces with opposing views can “be left to be published by others.”

Meanwhile, Trump has taken away the White House Correspondents Association’s independent role of designating reporter pool assignments and has prioritized access and status in the White House to an array of far-right influencers and news outlets.

In doing so, as Mother Jones asserts, Trump “has created a swell of flattering media coverage, a gauzy bubble around its every decision, no matter how destructive or incoherent. This new state media displays unquestioning loyalty, and its propaganda pipeline is speedier than ever, ensuring that every executive order or new move is greeted with rapturous pseudo-reporting the moment it’s announced.”