Methods in Madness

 

                                                   Methods in Madness

From Henderson's review of Casey Mulligan’s new book, You’re Hired: Untold Successes and Failures of a Populist President.

"Like many people who have been appalled by some of Trump’s tweets, I had assumed that he was up in the wee hours carelessly knocking out his bombastic messages. I’m still not a fan of many of Trump’s tweets, but a chapter titled “I Wish That He Would Stay Off Twitter” tells two important things about the economics tweets. First, Trump’s economic advisers gave him a lot of input on the economics tweets. Second, whereas I had thought that Trump’s exaggerations undercut him, Mulligan argues, with evidence, that they were part of a strategy for getting good news covered. If Trump told the truth about good economic news, the media would often not cover it. But if he exaggerated, “the press might enjoy correcting him and unwittingly disseminate the intended finding.” My Hoover colleague John Cochrane, in a recent post about the book, notes that Trump’s tweets are his version of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats. Recall that, hard as it is to imagine today, FDR faced a largely hostile conservative press. Trump faces hostile left-wing media."

So there is no way to get covered honestly in the American Press except by dishonesty?