This is our hell
Some tweets on the president of the US’s ignorance of the history of the US.
The Civil War is literally the #1 trending topic bc the sitting US president doesn't understand why it happened.
This is our hell.
— Patrick Quaife (@pquaife) May 1, 2017
Sean Spicer: Someone needs to help Don understand the Civil War.
Betsy DeVos: Can't. Fighting bears.
Ben Carson: Can't. Stuck in elevator.
— Frederick Douglass (@HITEXECUTIVE) May 1, 2017
"People don't ask that question, but why was there a Civil War?" – President Trump
You need to be asked this question to be a U.S. citizen pic.twitter.com/A9bl8JQKsX
— Gene Park (@GenePark) May 1, 2017
"What caused the Civil War?"
Bannon: The Jews!
Sessions: The blacks!
Pence: No! It was the gays!
DeVos: Guys, it was definitely bears.
— OhNoSheTwitnt (@OhNoSheTwitnt) May 1, 2017
actually there was never really a civil war a new york times op ed by bret stephens
— darth:™ (@darth) May 1, 2017
Updating to add Brad Jaffy’s audio clip which is indeed worth listening to. (Yes of course it’s also anguish to listen to but duty is duty.)
Trump asks why the Civil War couldn't have been “worked out” …the kind of answer that requires audio to fully absorbpic.twitter.com/OI86ATES4V
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) May 1, 2017
The question that hasn’t been asked enough is really: why didn’t the writers of the Constitution require basic literacy and knowledge of US government and history as one of the requirements for being president?
This is what blows me away time and time again. I cannot for the life of me understand how someone this profoundly ignorant about everything manages to function as an adult. All jokes about his toddler-like affect aside, how can anyone manage to drive a car, operate a bank account, cross the road safely or purchase insurance with such a gigantic deficit of understanding and a total lack of intellectual curiosity about anything?
As an immigrant, I will one day take the citizenship test and not knowing something about the US Civil War would likely lead me to flunking the test. I know that this question of why the Civil War happened is as basic a question about US history as you can get and discussed at length in grade school. I can only conclude therefore that his ignorance is one of choice not circumstance. The war wasn’t about him or anything he’s interested in, therefore it is uninteresting and unimportant to know anything about it.
Me too. I just cannot stop being amazed at each new instance of his astonishing ignorance.
Claire – there are several members of my family who manage that – I suspect those skills require a different skill set than actually understanding US history, government, or politics. And, there are often people who help them through the roughest things, like balancing checkbooks, doing taxes, even sometimes filling out employment applications they can’t seem to work their way through. And they have managed to get through life with no greater understanding than Trump, and some of them are nearly as old as Trump.
It doesn’t require much to travel through life in a fog. Strange how that works. I have trouble imagining it, too, and I’ve seen it with my own eyes in at least four members of my own family.
Now, come on, he has a good point. I’ve often wondered why the Revolutionary War couldn’t have been worked out. I know Honest Abe was pretty upset about how that was going. So was Queen Elizabeth.
Absolutely Bruce. I well remember how upset I knew I would be.
But, Bruce, no one was as upset about it as Julius Caesar. He was terribly upset…horribly upset. He felt he should have done more.
Everybody knows that the Revolutionary War was inevitable after the Gun Fight at the OK Corral and the Valentine’s Day Massacre. Fortunately the Americans were prepared thanks to Charles Lindbergh’s midnight ride across the Atlantic. It wasn’t until the sinking of the Bismarck (leading to Napoleon’s surrender at Appomattox) that things finally settled down, allowing Eisenhower’s introduction of the New Deal, just before the outbreak of the War of Independence.
But it was all OK after Liam Neeson freed the slaves. I think Bruce Willis had a hand in it somewhere…..or was that John Wayne?
Dammit, history’s hard. If only it were written down somewhere!