Functionally Illiterate

 Tucked into her discussion of Trump's shifting position on war with Iran, Richardson notes that Tulsi Gabbard - whose job seems to be on a death watch - considered delivering the Presidential Daily Briefing as a video, because Trump doesn't read. compare that to Trump's listless, fumbling speech the night of the strikes on Iran. He seemed both half asleep and read as if he had never seen the words before.

Trump is not "illiterate" in the sense that he cannot read. He's illiterate in the sense that he doesn't or won't. Again, this makes him a perfect avatar for so many Americans in the first quarter of the 21st century.

When we saw Obama speak the other night, he made an off the cuff remark about reading that he then circled back to and amplified. Reading, more than any other activity, expands our minds. Reading, he said, requires us to slow down and consider what we are seeing. Reading narratives forces empathy upon us. I'm reading Percival Everett's James, and I have to place myself inside Jim's perspective, hear his voice in my head and feel what he's feeling. The same was true of the last narrative non-fiction books I've read about 18th century mariners. I have to imagine the seas, feel the hunger, taste the awful food.

Reading is dying. Of course, it's been dying. The 1984 film, Ghostbusters, features a throwaway line from Egon: "Print is dead." In the same ways that American education has always been failing, reading has always been on the decline. 

Yet this era feels different. My students don't read for pleasure (except the brightest ones). Sometimes they don't even read for class. Many use various apps to have the text read to them. This passivity simply doesn't work for learning. Combine this with the prevalence of ChatGPT, and students are simply abandoning the foundations of real learning.

Trump, therefore, really IS representative of America in that way. The reality TV star and tabloid feature reflects a country that is slowly watching its critical thinking wither away. Trump is stupid. However, I do think he has a reading based learning disability. That's why he was shipped off to New York Military Academy. That's what rich folks did with kids with learning disabilities back then. Having a reading disability is NOT being stupid. However, if you don't work around your ADHD or dyslexia, then it's like just giving up walking when you can drive. It's like becoming a shut-in. 

Anyway, that guy - who is not bright, has a learning disability, hasn't worked to compensate for that LD issue, has used wealth instead to make sure he never has to work around that LD issue - is now having to make sophisticated and nuanced decisions of national security.