Donald Trump’s Unpopularity Is ‘Contagious,’ Says Former Bush Speechwriter
David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, recently took to Twitter to address a recent annual Gallup poll, which reveals that 53 percent of respondents are not happy with the United States’ position in the world under Donald Trump. According to Frum, the president’s unpopularity is “contagious” — something Frum believes the people in the president’s orbit don’t know how to handle, Newsweek reports.
“Trump’s unpopularity is contagious,” Frum tweeted. “Trump likes Russia? Americans turn against it. Trump distrusts trade? Americans embrace it. The distorted voting system cushions the electoral shock of that fact. But fact it is. Those who make statements about public opinion should be mindful,” he said.
Frum highlighted that the Gallup poll revealed a rift between Trump’s opinion and the general population on issues such as climate change’s importance, the military threat of Russia, and the benefit of foreign trade for growth opportunity. The 59-year-old political commentator believes that these rifts mean Trump is “in a lot of trouble.” Not only that, Frum believes that the people closest to Trump are unprepared to address the problem because they rely on media networks that “earn their living by deceiving their users.”
The 59-year-old author previously penned Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic, which expresses his belief that the president has undermined some of the most important institutions that make up the foundation of America.
Frum’s comments come in the wake of the viral video of a NATO meeting in which other world leaders — including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson — gossiped about Trump. The video was seized upon by Biden’s campaign, which used the footage in a political ad that suggested the U.S. president is not taken seriously by the rest of the world.
“They see him for what he really is, dangerously incompetent and incapable of world leadership,” Biden tweeted along with the ad.
In the ad, Biden warns of the damage Trump will do to the United States’ world standing should he be re-elected in 2020 and suggests that the country will have “difficulty” recovering from such a decline.
Per Vox, Trump was previously laughed at for a speech in September of last year at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. During the address, Trump boasted about the purported success of his administration.
“My administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” he said, which was met with laugher from the U.N. audience.
