As critical as Democratic strategists are of Fox News and Fox Business, many of them pay close attention to the right-wing cable news outlets in order to hear pro-Republican talking points and think about counterarguments to offer. Fox News and Fox Business are full of what some critics of President Donald Trump describe as “Trumpsplaining” — that is, arguments used to explain or rationalize controversial things he says and does.
When Trump called for war-torn Gaza to be turned into a resort area, numerous critics slammed the idea as ridiculous. But Trump’s defenders defended the proposal as Trump’s willingness to “think outside the box.”
Never Trump conservative David Frum addresses the “Trumpsplaining” phenomenon in an article published by The Atlantic on March 12. Although Frum himself doesn’t use that term in his piece, it appears in a sub-headline. And he takes on the idea, arguing that efforts to make Trump’s “malignant” policies seem “rational” are extremely detrimental to the United States.
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The Trump policies that Frum considers “malignant” range from “vows to annex Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal” to undermining “long-established alliances” to “economic bungling” that “has pushed the country toward recession.”
“Those of us who have reported for any length of time on the pro-Trump movement are called upon again and again to explain what is happening and why,” writes Frum, a former speechwriter for ex-President George W. Bush. “We attend conferences, join television programs, and meet foreign reporters. And when we do, we find ourselves confronted with what I call the opioid dispenser. The opioid dispenser might be a politician, a business leader, or an academic. Whatever their basis of authority, the opioid dispenser offers a message of reassurance…. I compare these bromides to opioids because they soothe immediate pain, but only at the risk of severe long-term harm.”
Frum adds, “Chemical opioids work by blocking pain receptors in the individual brain. Similarly, these calming messages about Donald Trump work by dulling the collective mind.”
The conservative journalist notes that Trump apologists will, for example, claim that his “abject support of Russia” and “enthusiasm for” President Vladimir Putin is “actually a grand strategy to counter China” — a claim that, Frum says, “unravels upon contact with reality.”
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Frum, who is Canadian but now lives in the United States, also points out that Trump apologists will try to paint his “anti-Canada economic warfare as an anti-drug policy” — even though Trump’s claim that huge amounts of fentanyl are entering the U.S. via Canada was “exposed as fiction.”
“To survive a dangerous environment requires accurate assessments of the predators on the prowl,” Frum warns. “Inventing an alternative Trump — one more rational and less malignant than the actual Trump — may assuage anxiety, but only temporarily. The invention soon collapses under the burden of its own untruth, wasting time in which the victims of its fiction could have taken more effective action to protect themselves.”
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David Frum’s full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).
