I think you're reading a lot into the conflict between Rick and the President that isn't really there. Rick just thinks that he's a force of nature beyond normal laws, and the conflict is about whether or not this is true, but obviously it is because he's Rick. The President is unhappy about this state of affairs, but ultimately decided to let it lie, which we hear when the President explains that the government made legal exceptions for Rick and Morty's shenanigans; however during this episode he decides to go after them and once again ultimately realises that he should let it lie.

The theme of intelligence does play much more strongly with the interactions between Rick and Beth, but given that Jerry can't actually know if she is a clone or not, it seems more like she just went for the guy who cares about her and doesn't care about whether or not she is a clone. More like her finding refuge in love, than a refuge in stupidity.

"but it isn’t the status quo, Rick has just been defeated, and defeated by Jerry"

I see your point, but it's not like Jerry is going to be hyped up because he out-smarted or out-planned Rick. He got lucky. So it'll probably go back to the Season 1 dynamic, and I don't think any of this happened because of "nihilism" either.

Anyways:

<blockquote>I understand your complaint that hiring women for the sake of hiring women may not be ideal, if that is what happened, but your suggestion that the show has gotten less intelligent is, quite simply, wrong; it has moved on from Philosophy 101 to something like Philosophy 102. You’re being sexists. Knock it off.</blockquote>

Most people who knock the show's intelligence seem to do it for all seasons; the problem with Season 3 seems to be quality, and this is a widely held belief near as I can tell. I personally think part of the problem stems from crappy characterization of female characters.

In Episode 2 Summer is shown to be a Mary Sue level badass, with the explanation given that she's angry about her parents' divorce. OK, that kind of worked when I watched it, but in retrospect Summer seems like she's gone way above her previous admirable competency into being a one-man army. Moreover, the psychologist in Episode 3 may be the only character to ever one-up Rick so thoroughly, and I hear her speech rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And finally, in Episode 9, Beth is revealed to be both smart and psychotic. And by "revealed", I mean that Rick tells us this by telling her this. At no point before did she display psychopathy or - may I be so bold - especial intelligence. Yes, OK, she's a (horse) surgeon, but Ben Carson is a (neuro) surgeon, and a real one at that; your profession doesn't automatically make you smart, and more importantly Beth's actions thus far haven't displayed the intelligence that a (horse) Surgeon should really have - you can't just tell us that a character is smart and never back that up with actual actions, there's a term for this on TvTropes and it's not a kind one.