befuddled

"... the idea that partisanship is bad, consensus is good, and that most Americans would like to meet in the middle.
But these are not uncontested assumptions. And, three days into their safari in flyover country, the researchers were hearing some things that disturbed them greatly —sentiments that threatened their beliefs to the very core.
Nearly a year after Donald Trump’s election shocked the prognosticators, ivory-tower types are still sifting through the wreckage. Group after group of befuddled elites has crisscrossed America to poke and prod and try to figure out what they missed ...
These were not the voices of an America that wanted to find mutual understanding with its neighbors. They were, essentially, separatists, proud of their extremism and disdainful of the unenlightened."
The Atlantic

Perhaps twitter et al. will achieve what the civil war did not - split the US into two different countries ...

the calm and the storm

Many were and still are wondering what Trump had in mind when he talked about "the calm before the storm".
This is my best guess, using his recent tweets as additional confirmation:
It is widely expected that North Korea will test yet another long-range ballistic missile soon, e.g. October 10 to coincide with some anniversaries; I believe this time the US will (try to) shoot down that missile.
It could either use THAAD stationed in South Korea or (more likely) Aegis as soon as the missile takes a course over Japan.
By the way, Shinzo Abe has an election coming up on October 22nd and could use some patriotic spirit ...

added later: Trump reportedly asked Abe why Japan did not shoot down the missiles NK tested in August.

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