It's interesting how you became the interviewee this time. It's also interesting that you are writing fiction about major issues of our time rather than nonfiction. I think your way of writing it is much more powerful than the textbook accounts of major policy insiders. Your long history of journalism makes you an insider as well, armed with many facts that most of us don’t know.

Your handling of the abortion issue, using your wife and daughter to help you deal with the emotional part is amazing. I have a long time proofer who has been afraid to do anything else when it comes to editing because initially I chastised her for changing the plot. I should have encouraged her to make my writing better and my characters more emotional, etc. I’ve had a hard time getting anyone to give me any detail feedback on my work. So it is wonderful that your wife, Cindy is such a great help with your fiction writing.

It is interesting that, while Ronald Reagan is still a Republican God, that you believe that he would be an enemy to Republicans today. The craziness in society, I attribute to fear. One of the reasons why people tell me they “Don’t watch the news.” Most people seem to have an immediate emotional response to something like a school shooting and even want it not to be true. If they don’t listen to news reports about it they avoid their emotional response—that fear that it might happen to them. Creating a kind of mass paranoia or hysteria. Probably liking someone who has all the answers to their fears with simple slogans and untruth to fix those fears and make them go away.

People like gossip. Social media increases their gossip access immensely from formally local people and grocery store rags to people from throughout the world spreading whatever… in your case, believing what some mysterious Q is spreading as the truth when a simple fact check shows that it’s totally fake.

There is also the false security of loyalty. A writer that I cherish for the way he writes, especially historical fiction, recently told me why he shies away from sensitive history about his heritage and the rise of German Nationalism here before World War II. Just wrote me that he is going to remain loyal to Trump, no matter what. Even if Trump is convicted of all of the crimes he has been indicted for? How far does loyalty go. I’m glad I see it unraveling among the staunchest of supporters.

If I was a reader of books, I would put Enemies Domestic at the top of the list. I’m glad I find time occasionally to take 30 minutes to listen to these interviews. Very instructive.

Ron