The Triumph Of Stupidity
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/opinion/education-smart-thinking-reading-tariffs.html
‘As the retired general Jim Mattis and Bing West once wrote, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.”’
This is from the op-ed by David Brooks on The New York Times web site on April 10 called “Producing Something This Stupid Is An Achievement Of A Lifetime” (above).
“Fat, Drunk, And Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son.”
This is from Animal House.
I think this sums up where we are at this point in time with President Donald Trump single-handedly upending the world’s economic systems. As I understand his logic, he believes that the United States has been getting a raw deal for years as other countries take advantage of us by imposing high tariffs for our exported goods. He also believes that if he rings the United States with tariff barriers, manufacturers will be forced to make their goods here.
He has also alienated our European allies. He has belittled our northern neighbor Canada. He wants to take Greenland from Denmark and the Panama Canal as well. And all this has sent the stock market into a deep dive, not just because of Mr. Trump’s policies, but because his volatile decision making has created so much uncertainty.
Many people, especially those who voted for Mr. Trump, believe that he sees what the rest of us do not. He has the vision and the plan to cause our economy to blossom and for America to be wealthy.
He is wrong and his plan is, how do you say it, stupid!
When Mr. Trump took office, the world’s economy was growing again after the Covid shock. The United States represents about 15% of the world’s economy which is the largest chunk of any other country. Why would anyone:
- Roil the world’s economy with a trade war?
- Side with the Russians in the Ukraine War by leaving Ukraine and Europe out of the room when a deal was trying to be made? It hasn’t been made.
- Send his vice president to Europe to insult our allies and lecture them on free speech?
- Slash and burn the entire federal health care and biomedical research apparatus?
- Dock great universities millions of grant dollars to punish them for their poor handling of antisemitic activities on their campuses? There had to be a better way to fight this awful trend.
There seems to be only one logical explanation. Despite what his voters think, Mr. Trump is just not that smart.
As the Brooks article points out, the country and its children are getting stupider every year. We don’t read. We watch screens. The schools are failing our children and DOGE is destroying our biomedical research infrastructure.
I have said for years that the most powerful force in the universe is stupidity.
It has taken over.
2 thoughts on “The Triumph Of Stupidity”
Like you, we wonder where our national stupidity is headed. Since few Trump supporters read anything analytical or factual, we have decided to stop discussing anything meaningful with them. Some successful Trumpsters surround us in Davidson and play tennis with us. So, we focus our conversations on how tennis balls are YELLOW because Trump’s hair is YELLOW. We also discuss whether they are concerned whether their Teslas will be vandalized. Finally, we remind them NOT to get vaccinated, to drink as much Cod Liver oil that RFK Jr recommends, and stop any fluoride so their teeth fall out and we can easily identify them by their smiles.
I like it. Good plan.