After just a few months, what we're seeing can't be chalked up to simple overreach or arrogance. No, this administration is hacking the government of the United States to pieces, not with a scalpel, but with an axe. An axe wielded by a man who has absolutely no understanding of what he's doing. He's destroying institutions the function of which he doesn't comprehend.

The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that the Trump agenda will be fully realized. It took the blood, sweat, toil and tears of many generations to build those institutions, and once they're gone I think there's a good chance they'll not be seen again. They will have been replaced on the American political landscape by tracts of scorched earth. Trump, his followers and eventual successors all cheer the destruction.

Personally, I think the America of a couple of years ago is already gone. The American political world tipped a bit when Trump won the nomination, and again when he won the White House. There's no going back--the political environment now allows a "President Donald Trump," with all the attendant ignorance, arrogance, myopia and corruption.

All empires fall. I just honestly didn't expect to witness it from the inside.