Transcript: Trump’s Rage at Canada Darkens—This Is “Not a Joke”
There is a harm, I think, to the relationship, if not between the governments, between the citizens of Canada and the citizens of America when our opposition party, the mainstream media, social media, Trump’s critics [say], There he goes again. There’s something important about saying what he’s doing is wrong and we’re not going to let him do it.
Sargent: To your point, I want to read some polling numbers because they show, at least when asked by pollsters, people find this stuff very disturbing. The new Quinnipiac survey finds only 42 percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of foreign policy, 53 percent disapprove. Only 36 percent approve of Trump’s handling of trade with Canada and 58 percent disapprove. Only 31 percent say Trump’s attitude toward Canada is about right. Meanwhile, in the new CNN poll, Trump’s approval on foreign affairs is 42 to 58. So to your point, it’s a constant among savvy reporters and the consultant class: Voters don’t care about any of this, so these numbers don’t matter. But what if they do care, right? Or maybe they need to be made to care, and maybe they can be made to care. Maybe they can be made to treat this as not a joke or a leverage play, to use that reprehensible cliché. How can something that so clearly demonstrates Trump’s unfitness for the presidency not be central in our political discourse?
Beutler: Yeah, it takes focused opposition, right? I sympathize with the instinct not to feed into the perception Trump wants to create of himself as a strong leader that people should fear. There is value in mocking him for taking this position. If Democrats had a consensus leader, a presidential nominee or somebody that was the omniscient party spokesperson, it would be good for them to say both, The way you treat the people who have been best to us in the world is appalling, but also how’s your plan to take them over going? How’s the fifty-first state coming along? Oh, you failed at that too? It’s a duality that I think that the Democratic Party is capable of striking. They’re not doing it for the reasons we just discussed, but I do think that there are scenarios that aren’t too far-fetched that could bring our politics and our political discourse into closer alignment with your view, that this is something that Americans might actually care about or should care about, that we stop blowing it off.
