Is Donald Trump America’s First Illiterate President?
Donald Trump is a trailblazer. He punched age discrimination in the face by becoming the oldest president, and he is also the wealthiest person to ever serve as president. Plus, he was smart enough to be the first president to get elected without any military or government service. That’s pretty groundbreaking, right?! So…is it possible that Donald Trump is the ultimate trailblazer by being America’s first illiterate president?! Today, we present the evidence to determine once and for all: Can Trump read?
Evidence: Remember that time when Donald Trump READ from a teleprompter, and every pundit lowered the bar six feet under the ground and referred to him as presidential? Yeah, me neither, but it happened.
Verdict: Trump Can Read
Evidence: Donald Trump answered with awkward silence when asked, “Do you read?” However, after some time he did mention reading the bible given to him by his mother all the time, but we know that’s not true because anyone who reads the good book knows we don’t refer to the chapter after First Corinthians as Two Corinthians.
Verdict: Trump Can’t Read
Evidence: Many times during the campaign, Donald Trump treated us to a dramatic readings of The Snake to show what would “definitely” happen to the country if we took in Syrian refugees. I would love to make his racism count against his literacy, but it does seem like he is reading words off the paper. I doubt he has the mental capacity to memorize the poem.
Verdict: Trump Can Read
Evidence: Trump was left to read the little over three-page Nunes memo for a few hours, which is obviously plenty of time for a very smart guy like him, but it was never confirmed that Trump actually read the memo. However, Trump prefers one-page memos, so it’s unlikely he read that “long” Nunes memo, but does that mean he can’t read the memo?
Verdict: This one seems like a toss up.
Evidence: Um, you might not believe it, but people are just flat out saying Donald Trump can’t read. I think the following video speaks for itself.
Verdict: Trump Can’t Read
Evidence: “Well, you know, I love to read. Actually I’m looking at a book, I’m reading a book, I’m trying to get started. Every time I do about a half a page, I get a phone call that there’s some emergency, this or that. But we’re going to see the home of Andrew Jackson today in Tennessee and I’m reading a book on Andrew Jackson. I love to read. I don’t get to read very much, Tucker, because I’m working very hard on lots of different things, including getting costs down. The costs of our country are out of control. But we have a lot of great things happening, we have a lot of tremendous things happening.” —Donald Trump Interview with Tucker Carlson, March 15, 2017. Unfortunately, you can’t hear the words coming out of his mouth because the video is no longer available, but you can enjoy this screenplay for the one-man show coming to an off broadway theater near you in 2022.
Verdict: Trump Can’t Read
As the late great Maya Angelou has told us, when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. Donald Trump has told us he doesn’t read because he is too busy, so we know he doesn’t read, and it shows. Thanks to his avoidance of books, Trump lacks the empathy, especially for women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and transgender people, that increases when reading becomes a part of daily life. However, that does not mean he can’t read because we have shown visual evidence of Trump reading, albeit at a less than ideal level for the leader of the free world.
So, can Trump read? My unscientific conclusion is Donald Trump has some kind of undiagnosed learning disability, but Trump would deny it as #FakeNews, of course, because Trump is a manly man with a head full of luscious hair who would consider it a weakness to admit to living with a disability. #Sad
So…how can we the people get our functionally illiterate president who can probably only spell his last name to improve his reading skills? I say we get Trump hooked on phonics to help him overcome his fear of books, and he’ll be reading our list of required books in no time!
Mmm…do I hear Trump’s re-election slogan? 2020: Make America Read Again! Now, that’s a tagline I can get behind, but that’s definitely not enough to get my vote.
