Date: 2025-08-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028050
TRUMP
AMERICAN STUPIDITY ON DISPLAY
The idea that a plurality of the American people
would vote for Trump is a measure of American stupidity
AMERICAN STUPIDITY ON DISPLAY
The idea that a plurality of the American people
would vote for Trump is a measure of American stupidity
Long Live the King
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
I am appalled at what is going on in the politics of the USA.
The idea that a man as flawed as Donald Trump can be elected not once, but twice, to the Presidency of the United does not say much for the judgement of Americans.
Why am I not surprised. I am 85 years old and it goes back to when I first visited Canada and the United States in the summer of 1960.
During my visit to Canada, I got to compare my own education at a British University with the education of my Canadian contempories. We concluded that I was a year ahead of my Canadian friends in terms of academic learning. Later in the summer myself and some young Canadians travelled from Montreal to Florida, and in the process concluded that young Americans were about a year behind the Canadians. That was in 1960 ... about 65 years ago!
But what has happened since then. My experience suggests that the UK and much of the world including Canada are doing a better job of education than was the case in 1960. An exception is the United States where the system of education seems to be in serious disarray, In other words, the gap between Americans and the rest of the world has been growing from the rather poor showing that we had identified more than 6 decades ago.
To a considerable extent, this has not constrained the economic progress of the United States because high salaries have attracted economic migrants ... like myself ... from all over the world to make up for the competence deficit that exists as a result of poor basic education in the United States.
So what are Trump's flaws! They are many, as a man, as a businessman, as a family man, as a negotiator ... at most everything. He is, however, a world class con-artist and this has served him well in the field of entertainment and now politics.
But it has never been good for any one else but Trump and his immediate family.
The Trump administration was problematic in the first term ... but it is anyone's guess how bad it may become in this second term. The signs are not encouraging.
Peter Burgess