They called Reagan an ‘amiable dunce.’ Now it’s Trump’s turn

In 1981, one of Washington’s most respected Democratic elder statesmen dismissed the new president as an “amiable dunce.” Clark Clifford, a former Secretary of Defense, said it at a dinner; the phrase leaked and became the era’s shorthand. Kind, but foolish. Likable, but lost.

Forty years later, Gallup found that 69% of Americans, nearly half of Democrats continue reading …