IQ test: Free association
One thing good about traveling in America, as opposed to traveling in other parts of the world, is that I need not cringe whenever politics comes up. Any mention of presidents by Americans, and I grin in anticipation at the prospect of watching Americans either squirm and get defensive or, if they're Trump supporters, put on combat gear.
Who wants to be in the position of defending the country's standard bearer when that standard bearer is going around labeling movie star Robert de Niro as "low IQ" and practically making love to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un?
How does one defend a president like that? I wouldn't be able to put any spin on his antics, maniac behavior, self-dealing, and self-promotion. And yet, many Americans attempt to do it (Sarah Sanders being the premier example of this. I can just imagine a future where entire fields of study become devoted to dissecting the disastrous rise and reign of alternative facts).
So much for being "presidential." When a president has taken the low road and waded into an insult slugfest against a constituent who is famous but nonetheless a civilian, there's really no depths to be plumbed any further.
Really, Donald? A critic says a swear word at you, and you dignify it with a dig at his intellect? Never mind that it opens you up to a counter-offensive about your own intellect or lack thereof (want to take an IQ test and see how you compare against ordinary college students?). But more than that, it just debases the American presidency, a position revered by the other leaders of the free world. While the free world lasts, of course.
These idiosyncrasies would be funny if the Donald weren't occupying that particular position, including how he never reads and instead, gets all his information from Fox TV, how he snacks on cheeseburgers before he sleeps, and how he can't even spell. Trump probably belongs to that same family of savants who thinks Norwegians come from Norwegia.
And on the flip-side of things, here he comes waxing poetic about a strong-arm ruler who just had his father's contemporaries, and not to mention his own half-brother, killed in various grisly ways.
But that's the way the world works now, where lofty ideals and inspiring principles are trampled by ghost armies and troll factories.
I consoled a liberal democrat friend by reminding him there were only two more years to go, and he shook his head. His verdict; the unscrupulous businessman with a penchant for self-promotion was gonna get himself re-elected. Great. More bad news. Just what the world needs.
Like any good citizen of the world, I exhorted him to get out and campaign, hit the streets, and make sure the Trump nightmare that he had confessed he was living in never happens again.
My Uber driver flying out of JFK was from Ghana. After finding out I was from Manila, he zoomed in on the only Filipino he knew; Manny Pacquiao. He inquired how the mayor was doing (senator, I corrected him) and his politics and principles. He asked whether Pacman was going to run for president, and I shrugged, not knowing. Of course, I had to admit, the possibility was always there.
To my surprise, the Ghanaian began urging me to make sure that I do something, anything to make sure the unsuspecting senator would not win the presidency. "Stop him! Don't let him win!"
I looked at the Ghanaian who was not from Ghania, and thought, "wow. I've come full circle."
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