Steelmanning (as opposed to strawmannin) is a rather obscure concept defined as: A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person’s argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented. Creating the strongest form of the opponent’s argument may involve removing flawed assumptions that could be easily refuted or developing the strongest points which counter one’s own position. Developing counters to steel man arguments may produce a stronger argument for one’s own position Apparently, the Washington Post called up economics journalist Noah Smith and asked him to make the best case for Trump’s economic policies, ostensibly in order to give people a good faith argument that they could easily understand so they’d realize that Trump’s policies aren’t actually very good. Steelmanning. Smith declined because while there may be some reasonable uses for this type of argumentation. using them with Trump’s ramblings easily turns into sanewashing. This is what some journalists and most headline writers are doing. By making Trump’s inane blather into coherent arguments they are missing the point entirely. Trump’s an imbecile and a lunatic and there is no real policy except revenge, racism and xenophobia. Giving his wild fascistic bleating the veneer of respectable policy proposals, regardless of your motive, is to mislead the public. People need to hear his insanity as it’s delivered. Only then do you really understand what’s going on. David Roberts explains…