Well, I was hopeful there for a while (in a bad sort of way). Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un were in an escalating war of words that had a small but real possibility of becoming an actual war between nuclear powers.
Then the neo-Nazis marched in Charlotteville and Trump could not quite bring himself to condemn then and set off a huge uproar. And then he incited further outrage by pardoning Joe Arpaio. And then Hurricane Harvey hit Houston and naturally took up all our energy.
All of this was bad, of course, bad in different ways and to varying degrees, but definitely bad. But still preferable to even a small risk of nuclear war. While Trump as distracted by Charlotteville, the North Koreans discretely called of their missile test over Guam. We all breathed a sigh of relief that all sides seemed to be climbing down. And I had reason to hope that in case of crisis it would not be necessary to handcuff Trump, stuff something in his mouth, and lock him in the closet until it was over. Distracting him with some bright, shiny object just might be sufficient.
Unfortunately, the North Koreans have failed to cooperate. They have now launched several test missiles over Japan and apparently successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. Presumably the deliberately timed their provocations for a time when US attention was distracted by a natural disaster and they could hope our response would be weakest.
So now the escalating war of words is back on. Buckle up your seatbelts, folks. This could be one rough ride.
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