GOP war talk could send Mexican cartel crisis spiraling even further out of control: columnist

Tough talk by Republicans suggesting war with Mexico over the drug cartels has a dangerous side effect, opinion writer David Frum wrote Thursday – their voters might be on board.

GOP figureheads – including Ron DeSantis, Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump and some well-respected House members – have suggested, or even promised, military action against gangs pumping drugs into the U.S.

“They are at war with us,” Graham declared in March. “We need to be at war with them.”

A danger of the war talk, Frum wrote in The Atlantic, is that “Republican politicians are radicalizing their own voters.

“Three years ago, proposals to bomb Mexico would have sounded crazy. But if enough people repeat the talk – if it is debated, amplified, and validated by trusted commentators — the talk gains power. It becomes thinkable, sayable, and then ultimately doable.

“...An atmosphere is being created in which Republicans who do not speculate about war with Mexico may be perceived as weak.”

Already the messages being passed down from politicians – often with caveats that their plans will be carried out with the Mexican government – are morphing by the time they reach voters’ ears, Frum said.

Fox host Greg Gutfeld said in December, “It’s time to take out cartels in Mexico, bomb the bleep out of them. It’ll be over in minutes … And it doesn’t matter if Mexico won’t agree, when their cartels are free to invade us anyway. We didn’t ask Pakistan if we could drop in and kill bin Laden.”

Frum wrote that the saber-rattling could have the opposite effect of what the politicians expect. Aggressive threats to a nation create nationalism, and nationalism makes the cartels stronger.

"The point is that the American government should not act brutishly, stupidly, and self-defeatingly,” Frum wrote.