Two years ago, when President Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time, Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats in the House chamber acted as if they were part of a “resistance” against some sort of “authoritarian” dictator. They refused to applaud even for lines that were objectionable to no one outside of ISIS. Two years later our political process and our liberties are alive and well and Democrats ought to extend the normal courtesies to our duly-elected President.

An authoritarian demands obedience from an entire society. Recent events show that Mr. Trump isn’t even enforcing it among his own employees. Recently this column noted that some media observers are finally giving up on the Trump “authoritarian” thesis:

Almost two years into the Trump presidency even left-leaning pundits are starting to acknowledge that reports of the demise of our republic were greatly exaggerated...

As for the once-popular media theory that Mr. Trump represented a unique and grave threat to constitutional governance, columnist

writes in the Los Angeles Times that “the specter of an autocratic president running roughshod over democratic institutions has ebbed.”

Doyle McManus

To be sure, it’s a conclusion that many members of the press corps still want to avoid reaching. Mr. McManus’s colleagues on the Times editorial board recently railed against what they called Mr. Trump’s “disturbingly authoritarian view of the presidency.” But a few recent events have made it harder to cling to this position.

Yet another former Trump aide wrote yet another book critical of the White House. And it’s not just former employees who feel free to criticize. Shannon Vavra of the website Axios recently ran a story called “All the times Trump’s intelligence officials contradicted him.”

Sometimes they all contradict him at once. Last week the New York Times noted:

A new American intelligence assessment of global threats has concluded that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear stockpiles and that Iran is not, for now, taking steps necessary to make a bomb, directly contradicting the rationale of two of President Trump’s foreign policy initiatives.

Those conclusions are part of an annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” released on Tuesday that also stressed the growing cyberthreat from Russia and China, which it said were now “more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.”

The 42-page threat report found that American trade policies and “unilateralism” — central themes of Mr. Trump’s “America First” approach — have strained traditional alliances and prompted foreign partners to seek new relationships.

Mr. Trump responded, not as authoritarians do by having his intel chiefs shot or exiled to Siberia, but by calling them “naive” and tweeting his dissenting view.

And now comes this news from the Associated Press:

The Senate voted Monday to oppose the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, breaking with President Donald Trump as he calls for a military drawdown in those countries.

Senators voted 70-26 for the amendment sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The measure says the Islamic State group and al-Qaida militants still pose a serious threat to the United States, and it warns that “a precipitous withdrawal” of U.S. forces from those countries could “allow terrorists to regroup, destabilize critical regions and create vacuums that could be filled by Iran or Russia.”

Trump abruptly tweeted plans for a U.S. pullout from Syria in December, arguing that the Islamic State group had been defeated even though his intelligence chiefs have said it remains a threat. Trump also ordered the military to develop plans to remove up to half of the 14,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

It seems that Mr. Trump intends to stop waging war even though many of his country’s legislators and even some of his own staff think he should continue. What kind of authoritarian does that?

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In Other News

For Readers Who Make it to Paragraph 12

“And as Americans begin preparing their first tax returns under the tax reform law passed by the President and the Republican-controlled Congress in late 2017, the poll finds 48% saying they favor the law, 40% oppose it. At the time of its passage, most were opposed to the proposals being made by Republicans in Congress (55% opposed it),” CNN, Feb. 4

Out on a Limb

“Veteran DC journalist says many news media wounds are ‘self-inflicted’,” The Hill, Feb. 1

Man Bites Cat

“A mountain lion mauled a trail runner. The man fought back and killed it,” Washington Post, Feb. 5

Because America’s Highest Property Taxes Aren’t High Enough

“‘Rain Tax’ Likely To Become Reality In New Jersey,” WLNY-TV, Feb. 4

And Because Not Enough Taxpayers Have Already Left

“Out-of-State Buyers Flock to Miami,” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 4

That’s Sexist

“Scans Show Female Brains Remain Youthful As Male Brains Wind Down,” NPR, Feb. 4

We Blame George W. Bush

“Before Global Warming, Humans Caused Global Cooling, Study Finds,” New York Times, Feb. 5

It’s Always in the Last Place You Look

“NASA Found a Giant Underground Cavern in Antarctica Almost the Size of Manhattan,” Popular Mechanics, Jan.31

Hawaii Ten-0

“Democratic state Rep. Richard Creagan proposed legislation aimed at making the state the first in the country to ban the sale of cigarettes for everyone except people age 100 and over, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported Sunday,” Associated Press, Feb. 4

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(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web. Thanks to Irene DeBlasio, Jack Archer, Brian Olson, Andrew Quigley, Jacob Shepherd and Monty Krieger.)

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Mr. Freeman is the co-author of “Borrowed Time,” now available from HarperBusiness.