Impolite Truths

Writing at the American Greatness website, historian Victor Davis Hanson observes that President Trump often speaks the truth but does so in blunt, undiplomatic terms to which the media objects. Hanson gives several recent examples.

In terms of Trump’s political liabilities—winning the independent and NeverTrump suburban voter—certainly it might be smarter for Trump to withhold comment or, for the interests of the presidency, to editorialize more delicately, through the group efforts of speechwriters and aides.

But an argument cannot be made in these instances that Trump’s commentaries are lies, or that he is less truthful than his critics. And that raises the question of how Trump became president in the first place: by employing the usual presidential euphemisms and “on the one hand/on the other hand” temporizing, or believing that candor—crass and crude that it can be—was what the people were thirsting for.

I’m thinking DJT appealed to a lot of “red meat” voters with his plain talk and failure to tiptoe around issues. I’m sure he thinks so too. Most of the time I find his bluntness refreshing.