Ken Burns said the drafters of the U.S. Constitution “would be abjectly disappointed” by the state of the United States in 2026, especially since the legislative branch has effectively “abdicated so much of the power,” The Wrap reports.

Michael Kapp: “The media evaluate party strength through the same lens used to evaluate campaigns: money raised, money spent, and quarterly comparisons. But parties are not campaigns. A campaign is designed to win one election. A party is supposed to build the infrastructure that makes repeated election wins possible.”

Susan Glasser: “The King’s biggest applause line was a tribute to Magna Carta, the thirteenth-century compact between an English monarch and his restive nobles, which, Charles noted, has become a pillar of American constitutional jurisprudence, with the Supreme Court citing it at least a hundred and sixty times in its history, not least to establish ‘the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.’”

“It was a telling sign of our dysfunctional times that members of Congress from both parties, having been increasingly iced out of decision-making by a President claiming unprecedented executive power for himself, immediately rose for a standing ovation. There were whoops and cheers and what appeared to be grins of amazement at the King’s cheek.”

“Did it matter that Donald Trump did not get the joke?”

Adam Serwer: “The Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, who lost his election in a landslide on Sunday after 16 years in power, presented himself as a defender of Western civilization. But at best, his lofty rhetoric was a code for bigotry and a justification for the persecution of minorities; at worst, it was a scam to fleece Hungarians by persuading them to blame everyone but those responsible for their problems. Maybe both.”

“Eventually Hungarians decided that a major source of their problems was Orbán himself. Maybe someday Americans will come to a similar realization about Orbán’s great admirer, Donald Trump, who praised the former Hungarian leader before the election as a ‘fantastic man’ who had done a ‘fantastic job.'”

“Orbánism was, more or less, a model for what Trump and the Republican Party are trying to do in the United States.”

Jacob T. Levy: “It’s not just that Orbán losing inspires hope in other competitive-autocratic countries ruled by right-wing nationalist authoritarians. It’s that his loss materially changes things in those other countries, because he’s been operating as a headquarters and funding source for the international ideological movement.”

Timothy Ash: “People may go along with a kleptocracy for as long as an economy is doing well, but ultimately, if the economy starts failing, and they see all these guys lining their pockets, then you can expect a reaction.”

Anne Applebaum: “Orbán’s loss brings to an end the assumption of inevitability that has pervaded the MAGA movement, as well as the belief—also present in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric—that illiberal parties are somehow destined not just to win but to hold power forever, because they have the support of the “real” people. As it turns out, history doesn’t work like that. “Real” people grow tired of their rulers. Old ideas become stale. Younger people question orthodoxy. Illiberalism leads to corruption.”

“And if Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too.”

Timothy Snyder: “We are seven months away from the most consequential midterm election in the history of the United States. Meanwhile, we are fighting a war. These are the structural conditions for a coup attempt in which a president tries to nullify elections and take permanent power as a dictator.”

“If we see this, we can stop it, overcome the movement that brought us to this point, and make a turn towards something better.”

“The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history,” one of the world’s top democracy researchers says in a new report, CNN reports.

David Frum: “The Dire Meaning of Gallup’s Announcement”

“Last week, the polling firm gallup announced that it would no longer survey presidential-approval ratings. This news stirred suspicions. President Trump’s numbers are declining badly, much worse than Joe Biden’s at the equivalent point in his presidency. Gallup’s most recent presidential-approval poll, in December, had Trump at 36 percent—well below the RealClearPolitics poll average of 42 percent. Trump is known for taking punitive action. He sued The Des Moines Register and its pollster, Ann Selzer, for an ego-bruising 2024 survey that suggested he might lose Iowa to Kamala Harris.”

“Assuming the worst is often prudent, but Gallup’s own explanation—citing changes in the company’s business strategy—makes a sad commercial sense. Quality polling companies such as Gallup inhabit a world of rising costs, declining rewards, and multiplying competition. Polling worked because people once accepted a call on the phone the same way they accepted jury duty: as one of the small obligations of citizenship that helped democracy work better. Large numbers of citizens have come to perceive the institutions of democracy as unfriendly to them. The dispassionate stranger on the phone inquiring how a citizen intended to vote—and why—is one of those institutions.”

Adam Liptak: “Starting with the 2024 decision that gave President Trump substantial immunity from prosecution and continuing through a score of emergency orders provisionally greenlighting an array of his second-term initiatives, Mr. Trump has had an extraordinarily successful run before the Supreme Court.”

“That came to a sudden, jolting halt on Friday, when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for six members of the court, roundly rejected Mr. Trump’s signature tariffs program. It was the Supreme Court’s first merits ruling — a final judgment on the lawfulness of an executive action — on an element of the administration’s second-term agenda. It amounted to a declaration of independence.”

“It also served as another in a series of clashes between the leaders of two branches of the federal government cut from very different cloth: the controlled, cerebral chief justice and the biting, brazen president.”

Politico: “FCC Chair Brendan Carr wants broadcasters to air ‘patriotic, pro-America content’ to support the White House’s plans to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary.”

“’As America’s 250th anniversary approaches, it is important to reflect on the ideals and events that have defined our past while keeping an eye towards our country’s bright future,’ Carr said in a statement Friday. ‘I am calling on broadcasters to pledge to provide programming that promotes civic education, national pride, and our shared history.’”