Left and Right Columnists Pile On Trump
Left and Right Columnists Pile On Trump
The News
President Trump is taking fire from commentators on both the left and the right, who over the past 24 hours have converged on the same charge: his biggest problems are self-inflicted.
Between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday midday, opinion pieces in The New York Times, The Economist, the Financial Times, The Hill, RealClearPolitics, Political Wire, Raw Story and AlterNet all argued some version of it — on the economy, on Iran, on Venezuela.
This is a commentary wave, not a news event. None of the pieces reports a new government action.
Timeline
Political Wire publishes "Trump Can't Say He Wasn't Warned," calling the president's war with Iran "one of the most spectacular foreign policy blunders of any modern presidency" and arguing Iran's leadership "appears more entrenched than ever."
The Economist runs "As his presidency flounders, Donald Trump is more dangerous than ever," warning readers to "forget lame ducks" and predicting the president will defend his dominance "like an ageing silverback gorilla."
The Hill publishes an opinion piece arguing Trump is "dropping the ball in Venezuela" and needs a new plan.
AlterNet writes up a column by MS NOW reporter James Downie arguing that, unlike past presidents, Trump's troubles are largely "self-inflicted."
The Financial Times publishes "The end of Trumpsplaining," arguing the idea that the president is a grand strategist "will not survive the Iran fiasco."
RealClearPolitics, a right-leaning aggregator, runs "Trump Can't Stop Sabotaging His Own Economy," which argues that presidents usually get too much credit or blame for the economy but that "in Trump's case, the causation is far clearer."
The New York Times publishes "It Was Inevitable That Trump Would Come to This," an opinion column on the trade fight with Canada.
Reactions
The defense came from the same publication as one of the attacks. RealClearPolitics also ran "Trump Not Getting Credit Where Credit Is Due" on Wednesday morning, arguing the president's second term "is exceeding expectations, no thanks to the liberal media that are simply too dishonest to give him a fair shake."
Raw Story went the furthest, summarizing MS NOW's James Downie as concluding Trump's economic record is bad enough that he "must have wrecked it on purpose" — the argument being that the damage stems from the administration's own decisions rather than outside shocks.
The Economist's framing cuts against the idea that any of this weakens him. Its piece argues that anyone hoping to see Trump "chastened by failure is misjudging the man."
None of the pieces in this cluster carries a response from the White House.
What's Next
Watch whether the tone holds on the right. RealClearPolitics publishing both the indictment and the defense within 40 minutes is the clearest sign that the argument is now live inside conservative media, not just outside it.
The three specific fronts the columnists name — the economy, Iran and Venezuela — are the ones to measure against actual data and actual policy in the coming weeks.
More
A note on what this story is. Every source in it is an opinion column or an aggregation of one. The Frank is reporting that these arguments were made, by whom, and when — not endorsing their conclusions about the economy, Iran or Venezuela, none of which are established here by reporting.
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