I am apparently now old enough to start my writing with “you young people might not remember this, … “, and there is indeed something I want to bring up to your attention. There was a music video in the 1980’s, a leftist progressive political commentary of the day, where Ronald Reagan was seen as a senile unhinged old man who is out of touch with the realities of the world as the young generation perceives it, and they are worried the crazy old guy is going to destroy their world, either deliberately or, more likely, by accident.

Watch it carefully. Observe how the same pattern repeats today with Trump. The leftists think they are so smart. They think they understand things. They think they are the ones who will take care of the world the best, so we would all be wise to leave it up to them. The right-wing, anti-communist, rabidly pro-American conservative in power will ruin everything. They are concerned. They are scared. Something needs to be done. And it wasn’t just this video, this was the zeitgeist.

Next scene, in real life, this same Ronald Reagan, who was portrayed in this video as a bumbling senile old man completely out of touch with the realities of the world (notice the similarity?) ended the cold war and came to an agreement with Mikhail Gorbachev.

The right-wing politicians who were the targets of the “spitting image” mockery, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, actually saved the world, and the “progressive” leftists were the ones completely out of touch with the realities of the world.

I am old enough to have followed all this in the newspapers and on TV as it was happening. That’s why I recognized the pattern with Trump so immediately.

The difference is that nobody in the 1980’s even thought of accusing Reagan of being a stooge of the Kremlin, Andropov’s man in the White House. This is what gave Reagan the option of extending a friendly hand to Kremlin and negotiating a peace. This is the thing that actually saved the world.

What we have now is the situation where this option is denied to the President by virtually all political forces. If he attempts to broker a peace, accusations of treachery will be rekindled with increased force. Only conflict is acceptable. Only war is a patriotic option.

Which means America is firmly on the collision course. Everything else is in a state of flux.