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Showing posts from August, 2017

Do Americans Really Want to See Themselves in Their President?

This essay may make me sound like what is now pejoratively referred to as an "elitist," and if it does, so be it. One of the reasons that not-particularly-intelligent people (there, I said it) who hated Obama gave for voting enthusiastically for Trump was, "I always felt that Obama was talking down to me; Trump speaks my language." Translation for most Trump voters: "I resented the fact that Obama was way smarter than me, and made me feel dumb." Translation for Southern white Trump voters: "That Obama sounded like an uppity n--ger." But here's the thing that neither Trump nor many of the people that voted for him failed to grasp, perhaps precisely because of their lack of perspicacity: It's hard being president. If it were easy, anyone could do it. Let me rephrase that: it it were easy, anyone could do it well.  We've certainly been witness to more than one unintelligent president who did the job poorly. But we've never had ...