I’d like to think that they would experience some discomfort but so far they seem to be able to overlook or ignore just about any evidence of the deficiencies of the man and party they elected — or maybe they don’t think of them as deficiencies at all.

Yea, I remember the belligerence. So was the North Korean communication likely not specifically about pulling families, or about a tweet then? I don’t get the process Woodward is saying happened.

The anonymous op-ed got me thinking about the ego battle between Charles Koch and his network and Donald Trump, and I think my thoughts are supported by a remark by Barack Obama, who criticized the author for surreptitiously blocking 10% of Trump’s agenda while supporting the rest. What strikes me is that those 10% largely represent Trump policies that hurt Koch’s interests. Without going too far, I think it’s legitimate to ask whether the so-called “responsible adults” and Koch are connected. This, of course, would put Pence in a very interesting position.

Thousands of mental health professionals agree with Woodward and the New York Times op-ed author: Trump is dangerous

Finally, I’d like to return to some of the main points I made in the comment you initially reacted to, and which have fallen out of our discussion:

“I don’t recall that Reagan attacked the press and the judicial system, or urged violence against political opponents, or personally tried to profit from his tenure, or lied the way Trump does, and I think these differences are significant.”

1. What evidence do you have that Reagan said or intimated that the press was “the enemy of the people?”
2. What evidence do you have that Reagan attempted to delegitimize unfavorable news stories and critical publications by calling them “fake news?”
3. What evidence do you have that Reagan attacked the judicial system and tried to turn it into an instrument for self-protection?
4. What evidence do you have that Reagan spoke about using the justice department against representatives of the opposing political party?
5. What evidence do you have that Reagan urged his supporters to use violence against his opponents?
6. What evidence do you have – not that Reagan lied, but that his lies were in character and number comparable to Trump’s, e.g. that he habitually and repeatedly lied about manifest facts?
7. What evidence do you have that Reagan tried to use the presidency as a source of personal enrichment?

In anticipation of any misstatements on your part: The purpose of these questions is not to paint a hagiographic portrait of Reagan. None of them has to do with his policies. They all have to do with generally accepted democratic values. The purpose is to show that Trump is a unique threat to democracy.

That is not “new” to Woodward MikeN, it was all over the news this past May. Trump was all hot about it before the Winter Olympics. This was when the loon in chief was considering a “bloody nose” strike on the North and expanding military games. The north’s message then was that expanded war games would be taken as a sign of aggression.

My questions:
1) How else would Trump have intended it to be interpreted?
2) How were the North Koreans able to send this communication, if Trump never tweeted it?

No, it’s not a matter of slack. It’s a matter of appreciating differences. I could just as well say that you give Trump too much “slack.” In his Illinois speech, Obama also inferred that Trump is a threat to democracy. Reagan was and deserved to be severely criticized, but I don’t recall anyone saying that about him. As far as Iran-Contra is concerned, I take it that your statement, “The history of US government actions around the world is not news to me either,” is an acknowledgement that the scandal wasn’t a major deviation from what had happened before.

Re. the Soviet Union, we agree that the economy was weak. Where we disagree is that you’re saying that that weakness could have had one and only one outcome. The economy was essentially divided into an inefficient civilian sector and a favored military-industrial complex sector. The army was still powerful enough to embark on a campaign of repression. That the Warsaw Pact would end the peaceful way it did was by no means given. And, by the way, the dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred when Reagan and Gorbachev were no longer in power.

Your assessment of the Soviet Union is contrafactual

No, it isn’t. That is the primary lesson we’ve learned from the materials released after the Soviet Union fell apart — that and the fact that their military was powerful in numbers of personnel only.

The history of US government actions around the world is not news to me either. We disagree on Reagan/Trump comparison, I get that. I think you give Reagan too much slack, you don’t think I give him enough.

Correction: counterfactual, not contrafactual.