‘As if the lies were truth’: Ex-Bush aide explodes at alternate reality created by pro-Trump media
In a Sunday morning tweetstorm, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush hammered the conservative media for “amplifying” the lies that come out of President-elect Donald Trump’s mouth thereby causing their readers or viewers to “lose touch with reality.”
In a series of posts of Twitter, speechwriter David Frum — who has long been critical of Trump — began by pointing out that the president-elect continues to lie about how well he did in the election as he disregards the fact that he lost the popular vote.
“Trump’s lying about the popular vote has dangerous real-world consequences,” Frum wrote before accusing the president-elect of suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, and believing “the lies he tells, after he tells them.”
Therein lies the problem, Frum complains, laying out step-by-step how enabling Trump aides and an uncritical conservative media will inevitably make Republican lawmakers act recklessly damaging the conservative cause.
See the tweets below:
Trump’s lying about the popular vote has dangerous real-world consequences
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
1) Trump, a textbook case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, will believe the lies he tells, after he tells them https://t.co/ZCXPUGNxtc
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
2) Meaning that Trump will live among ego-salving fantasies – a dangerous location for a president of the United States
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
3) Worse, Trump will surround himself by people who repeat his lies back to him: either a) abject creatives or b) sinister manipulators
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
4) Worse still: because the conservative media amplify Trump’s lies, the whole conservative world will lose touch with reality
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
5) Encouraging true believers – and compelling even pragmatists – to act en masse as if the lies were truth.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
6) Among other negative consequences, this will encourage reckless political risk-taking by Republicans in Congress
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
7) It remains true that Republican candidates for president have won the national popular vote only once since 1988: 1 in 7 elections!
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
8) The party’s agenda is not popular in real-life. That would seem to suggest … caution.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
9) Instead, it seems congressional Republicans are about to plunge ahead as if the country were clamoring for their program.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
10) Some congressional Republicans surely know this not to be true. They dare not act on that knowledge
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
11) In 1965, 1981, 2009, new presidents changed national direction with clear democratic consent.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
12) 2017 bids to be as activist as those prior years – but without the clear consent. How will that end? Not well, I fear.
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— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2016
Bolstering Frum’s point that Trump’s lies about the election results has become the conservative canon, a recent poll shows that 52 percent of Republican voters think Trump won the popular vote in November, although he lost by 3 million votes.