In Defense Of Trump's Tweets July 8, 2017·8:05 AM ET Victor Davis Hanson
President Trump's tweets have been a constant source of controversy. NPR's Scott Simon talks with columnist and professor Victor Davis Hanson, who's written a defense of the tweets.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Some of President Trump's best supporters, among politicians and pundits, wish he didn't have such an itchy Twitter finger. President says he tweets to reach the American public directly. It's modern-day presidential. But two tweets in which Mr. Trump bashes the media and opponents in personal, often ferocious, terms help or hurt his public appeal or his political agenda.
Nationally, syndicated columnist Victor Davis Hanson has written a defense of the president's tweets for the American Greatness website. He's a professor of classics and military history, currently a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. And he joins us via Skype. Welcome back to our program, professor.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Thank you for having me.
SIMON: You say these tweets are, quote, "seemingly counterproductive." What's the seemingly part to you?
HANSON:
Well, I mean, he is promoting an agenda on restoring legal immigration only and energy development, tax reform. That seems to poll pretty favorably with the American people. And yet the preponderance of a lot of his tweets are these ad hominem back and forth with individual media figures. And one would think that that would hurt those agendas, especially when there would be no need to get in these cul de sacs because there's public support for the agenda. But I say seemingly because every pundit who in the past has predicted that this was the road to perdition has been proven wrong.
SIMON: But let me ask you this. Whatever political effect - is it destroying civility in American politics?
HANSON: Trump is a catalyst. I think he's a symptom of the times. I mean, we've got to remember that way, way back, Jonathan Chait wrote an article about Bush, said, why I hate George Bush. Or Howard Dean said, I hate all Republicans.
So Trump is a fish that swims in an existing lake. He didn't create Steve Colbert. He didn't create Bill Maher. He didn't create Kathy Griffin. He didn't create Madonna. All of that assassination chic was there before we got here.
But every time I've written that or said that, I have been challenged by his base. And they've said to me, how well did that work with Mitt Romney? How well did that work with - John McCain was a good, decent man when they got done with him. He was an old fuddy duddy who didn't remember how many houses he was.
snip
There was an anger in the Republican base that says,
we played by the Marquess of Queensbury rules, and we got nowhere. And we were demonized as heartless, racist, homophobic, sexist. And look how they took a good man like George Bush and turned him into a monster. And now they consider him sort of a impotent painter that they like again. But they're not going to do that anymore. And I think they're going to play fire with fire. And that's where we are now.
SIMON: Victor Davis Hanson, professor, author and columnist, thanks so much for being with us.
HANSON: Thank you.
http://www.npr.org/2017/07/08/536125090/in-defense-of-trumps-tweets
