The Butterfield Fallacy Hits the WAPO’s Analysis of Why Fentanyl Trafficking has Plummeted (posted 6/6/25)

Regular readers will have noticed my repeated, sardonic usage of the word, “Unexpectedly!”  I started this a while ago, when I came across a clueless partisan reporter writing that in the wake of a push to defund the police, “crime unexpectedly rose.” 

That “unexpectedly” was so jarringly dumb that I couldn’t help but mock it, and the ideological prejudice that it betrayed.  How can anybody not realize that if you make it harder for cops to fight criminals and crime, more criminals are going to commit more crimes? 

I’ll tell you how: they are raised in an ideological bubble, and then they go to J-school and receive a pre-digested set of assumptions, prejudices and conclusions, and those congeal, and then harden into the cement of obliviousness.  Then, on graduation day, the newly minted “journalists” receive a diploma and a set of partisan blinders.  And they snap those on, and from that day forward they have a very hard time discerning basic cause and effect. 

A month or so ago, I was discussing this process with a buddy of mine – some bourbon was involved – and he told me I was talking about the Butterfield Fallacy.  I told him that I don’t even know any gay slang, and also that I thought that was actually a Robert Ludlum novel.  (Drink at least three double shots of bourbon, and that line will be funnier than it is right now.)

The next day I looked it up, and found out that my buddy was right.  Fox Butterfield was a  writer for the NYT about 20 years ago, and among other things, he wrote a series of stories about crime in which he discussed what he called, “the paradox of a falling crime rate but a rising prison population.”  In one story, he wrote about an increase in the prison population “despite a decline in serious crime.” 

In other words, his “paradox” and “despite” were my “unexpectedly.”  The bad news is that I thought I was coming up with something new, and wasn’t.  The good news is that the cognitive horsepower of Ivy Leaguers never fails to disappoint.

Did I mention that Fox Butterfield graduated from Harvard University?  Because of course he did. 

Also: Unexpectedly!

A few days ago we got another fantastic example of this enduring phenomenon, this time from the Washington Post, where “Democracy dies in imbecility.”

The WAPO discovered an odd anomaly: there seems to have been a big decrease in fentanyl seizures on our southern border recently. 

I know what you’re thinking – and it starts with “Duh!” – but hold that obvious thought. 

Because I’ve gone down into an underground chamber here at stately Simpson manor, taken my conical purple wizard hat out of its pressurized Lucite case, put it on my head, and magically traveled 1000 miles and 5 days back in time, to a WAPO conference room in DC, where an editor was discussing story ideas with a clot of young reporters.

Just to establish the visuals: the male reporters tended toward man buns and sad David Hogg beards, and half of them identified as non-binary, while the females were all scowls and unnatural hair colors and a lot of anger at their dads.

Let’s listen in…

Editor: So there’s this big drop in fentanyl seizures at the southern border, and we need to figure out whether it’s worth covering.  The first step is to brainstorm about the possible causes.

Male Reporter (MR) 1:  Racism!

Editor: What does fentanyl have to do—

Female Reporter (FR) 1: Sexism!

MR 1: Come on Karen, you always say sexism.

FR 1: Well you always say racism, Bruce!

FR 2 (under her breath):  It usually IS sexism.

FR 1: I know, right? (They fist bump, and glare at Bruce.)

Editor: I don’t think it’s racism or sexism.

FR 3: Says the white man.

Editor: I identify as a gender-nonconforming Native American!  You know that.

MR 2: You’re as white as Elizabeth Warren.

MR 1 (snickering): #wemustneverstopmockingher

FR 2: But you ARE a little on the gender-nonconforming side.

(FR 1 chuckles and fist bumps FR 2.)

Editor: Knock off the fist bumping!  Does anyone have any other ideas about what might have caused the drop in fentanyl trafficking?

MR 3: Global warming?

FR 3 (rolling her eyes): Not this again.

MR 3: It’s an EXISTENTIAL CRISIS!

Editor: Of course it is.  And it’s probably going to kill us all.  But what does global warming have to do with less fentanyl at the southern border?

MR 1: Sun spots.  (Confused looks from around the table.)  Sun spots cause global warming, and the increased temperatures make Mexico even hotter, and the drug mules are probably passing out with heat exhaustion and dying half way across the desert.

MR 3: Sun spots don’t cause global warming, Bruce.  We’ve been over this a thousand times.

FR 3 (leaning conspiratorially toward the other female reporters):  Here goes the countdown. (She raises her index finger and looks at MR 3.)

MR 3 (counting on his fingers):  It’s big disgusting SUVs, cow farts, and capitalism.

Editor:  I’m not sure—

MR 2:  What about the Jews?

Editor: What?

MR 2: Maybe it’s… the Jews?

MR 1 (elbowing MR2 and whispering loudly):  Janice is Jewish.

FR 3: No I’m not!  My idiot dad is Jewish, but that doesn’t mean I am.  (quieter)  Stupid patriarchal jerk!

Editor: What do the Jews have to do with fentanyl in Mexico?

MR 2:  Isn’t the emperor of Mexico a Jewish lady?  Frieda Finebaum, or something like that?

FR 1: Mexico doesn’t have an emperor, Gary!  And their president is Claudia Sheinbaum.

MR 2:  That’s it!  And she’s Jewish, right?

FR 3: Yes, but what does that have to do with—

FR 1:  Well, they’re really sneaky.  Everybody knows that.  (FR 3 crosses her arms and stares at her.)  I mean, like your dad.  A lot of them are sneaky, patriarchal jerks like your dad.

MR 3: I’ve GOT it!  (Everybody turns toward him.)  Sheinbaum is a greedy Jewish capitalist who hatched this evil plot to get rich on fentanyl money, and she brought the sexist and racist cartels in on it, so they’ve been loading up poor women of color with fentanyl and sending them across the desert to sneak into America, except that global warming is killing them before they can make it to the border.  

Editor (after a long pause, during which everyone looks at everyone else): So you’re saying that it’s racism, sexism, Judaism, capitalism AND global warming?

MR 3: Exactly!

Everyone starts nodding excitedly.  The editor slowly does too.

Editor (grinning): It all makes sense.  (looking around the room) I smell a Pulitzer!  (He stands up quickly.) Everybody get packed.  This story is going to require all hands on deck, so you’re all heading for the border!  Hail Satan!

And, scene.          

Okay, I can’t completely vouch for the accuracy of that probably very accurate scenario.  But I can point you to the actual WAPO story that resulted, which I am not making up. It was written by Mary Beth Sheridan, and she’s the Post’s “Mexico and Central America Correspondent,” so you know she’s really good. 

The headline of the story: “The Mysterious Drop in Fentanyl Seizures on the US-Mexico Border.”   The sub-head: “The reasons behind the decrease of fentanyl seizures…are complex.”

“Mysterious”!  “Complex”!  Seriously, you can’t make this up.  The writer later goes for the trifecta, calling the drop “puzzling.”

By the end of the article, the author even performs the Butterfield Rectal-Cranial Inversion move (which HAS to be gay slang doesn’t it?  And that’s not just the bourbon talking).  To wit:

“The decline is occurring even as the Trump administration has deployed thousands of troops to the border and expanded drone flights.  With more boots on the ground, you’d think seizures would go up, not down.”

Again, as God is my witness, I did not make that up.  This “journalist” is a purported expert on the region, and she knows that Trump has pulled out all the stops and gone Roman on the border.  But she still cannot see the forest for the trees. 

In fact, she can’t see the forest OR the trees.  Or the gigantic meadow in front of the forest and the trees.  Or the creek that flows through the meadow and into the forest, and between the trees.

It doesn’t occur to her that now that we’ve got a president who is serious about closing the border, the border has been closed.  Or that cartels might send less fentanyl to a closed border being manned by thousands of Hulk Homan™ types with military weaponry than they did to a wide-open border with a big banner saying, “Bienvenidos, Shriners and Cartel Members!”

The tariffs might be confusing, and Musk might be slapping Trump like Mrs. Macron slapping Mr. Macron, and every partisan district judge with a Napolean complex might be dreaming up new reasons why the constitution forbids the Chief Executive from carrying out the duties of the Chief Executive. 

But this is the quality of our opposition, people. 

They’re defending wife-beating gang-bangers and Jew-hating, illegal Egyptian pyromaniacs, and using Tampon Tim and Lil’ Davy Hogg to appeal to young male voters, and they can’t figure out why closing our borders would result in less cross-border crime.

I think we’re going to be fine.

Hamas delenda est!