I assumed this was just another insincere and snide comment but then I saw your name. I really don't think it has anything to do with Trump. For starters without any local Washington context giving data for 4, 7 and 10pm makes no sense if the subtext is mass evacuation. More importantly everyone loves talking about traffic in this area, congress is gone so it's a slow news month and the largest infrastructure project in the history of the area was announced yesterday, the Frederick Douglas bridge.

I'm not so much commenting about the likelihood of nuclear war, so much as about the empirically obvious fact that discussions of nuclear war are very much in the zeitgeist, most especially in the Washington Post.

I didn't think your comment was motivated by the likelihood of nuclear war. Just to add another data point, this was one of two articles posted by this reporter today. The other article was about the likelihood that Reps were conducting town hall meetings in August. The reporter looks like they have a schedule of two articles published in the middle of the month and one at the end of the month.

I'd posit some from WaPo would welcome Trump starting a nuclear war just so they can claim "See, we were right finally, we told you so!"

I'll always remember election night when after much confusion and sadness, MSNBC found somewhere a stock market chart from Japan or maybe after-hours trading showing the market was headed down. They printed it out to make it look official, the mood lifted and they excitedly talked about how Trump will blow away everyone's 401k accounts and people will be starving during their retirement. Of course stock market bounced back up next day and was doing ok since. But what was interesting is how excited and happy they were talking about retirement accounts going up in flames just as long as it fit the story they have been supporting and building up.

Traffic dynamics of rush our traffic != traffic dynamics because people think their city is about to be nuked.