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| Kinga Cichewicz@all_the_wander from Upsplash |
“When you watch Trump, David, I’m not sure the man reads very well. I know he doesn’t write very well. I would argue that anybody who can’t read and can’t write can’t think. That’s what we have”. — Stephen King (NYT Magazine)
They won’t read, they don’t read, and they can’t read. That’s right — far right. And the Trump world is just fine with that. Sorry to deliver the blunt facts — but read below and weep. (Don’t worry. I’ll give you a tip or two by the end.)
Irecognize two inherent ironies this essay must face. First, and most obvious, is that the likelihood of people reading this is limited; however, on the off chance that one does, I want to gird you with some evidence to use in the war against ignorance. The second, and a far more disturbing irony, is that the reasons a large percentage of the population won’t believe what they just might read is that this essay paints a target on those for whom reading has been either very difficult or that the information that they read is “fake news.” People refrain from being a target.
Despite the obstacles, allow me to lay out the case that Stephen King opines with some broader facts. “The U.S. Department of Education…study seeks to determine how well adults are prepared to function in today’s society.” The most recent results show “52% of all Americans have basic or below-basic reading skills.” Of that group 18% are either illiterate or below basic in their reading skills. When one considers that roughly only 61% of Americans bother to vote, one begins to understand why people are not active citizens in a republic that demands that its citizens engage in the nation’s welfare.
More importantly, of those who vote, what information do they reach for to inform them? Here is the rub: according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Jan. 8 to Feb. 7, “Roughly a quarter of U.S. adults (27%) say they haven’t read a book in whole or in part in the past year, whether in print, electronic or audio form. Who are these non-book readers?” Answer: 44% had only a high school education or less. That is the largest portion. Of that, men are 10% less likely to read than women. Blacks and Hispanics are also largely represented in the non-reader group. (Given the language issues for Hispanics, that is somewhat understandable. Toss in poverty and sub-par schools in poor neighborhoods, and one understands the heightened percentage.)
“The gulf between the party identification of white voters with college degrees and those without is growing rapidly. Trump is widening it.”
Who does read? College educated folks made up the smallest number of non-readers at 8%. So connect the dots; the more you become educated, the more you read, and the more educated one becomes, the probability that one will read critically. That means one questions assumptions, looks at the qualified sources, and perhaps most importantly, takes time to sift through more than one viewpoint.
Thus, we come to the essay penned in November of 2018 in The Atlantic by Adam Harris entitled “America Is a Divided Nation”; its subtitle gets right to the theme — “The gulf between the party identification of white voters with college degrees and those without is growing rapidly. Trump is widening it.” Here I must defer to Mr. Harris for the nuts and bolts of the battle to keep America away from college — the new (I emphasize) Republican strategy:
One of the most striking patterns in yesterday’s election was years in the making: a major partisan divide between white voters with a college degree and those without one.
According to exit polls, 61 percent of non-college-educated white voters cast their ballots for Republicans while just 45 percent of college-educated white voters did so. Meanwhile 53 percent of college-educated white voters cast their votes for Democrats compared with 37 percent of those without a degree. The diploma divide, as it’s often called, is not occurring across the electorate; it is primarily a phenomenon among white voters. It’s an unprecedented divide, and is in fact a complete departure from the diploma divide of the past.
Harris continues to explain that it was Democrats who appealed to those folks who had less education; whereas, the Republicans of Rockefeller lore appealed to more literate Americans. That is not the Trump mantra today.
Harris speaks of “the diploma divide” as the reason why Trump’s popularity at least reached barely enough people in just the right states with just the number of electors to make a difference in 2016. “Last night’s results confirm that the diploma divide is likely here to stay — especially if the GOP maintains its alignment with Trump and the nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiments he hangs his hat on. The gap is likely to be one of the most powerful forces shaping American politics for decades to come.”
Instead, the journalistic world view is equated to a simple devious warning that they are “the enemy of the people.”
Harris’s research was exhaustive and this became his conclusion: “When President Trump says ‘Make America great again,’ the again is instructive.” So for many non-college educated Americans, there is a longing for the good-old-days when a family could be prosperous with the husband working, the wife cooking, and the kids all learning that it is better to be seen but not heard. Naturally, that golden age did not include civil rights or women’s liberation. Minorities were openly discriminated, attacked, and lynched for daring to step up to the ballot box and demand the right to vote.
And who best to deliver this information to folks who don’t, won’t, and can’t read? You guessed it — Fox News. Two of the most zealous voices boast that they became rich and successful, not to mention influential due to Fox and the far right radio waves, are Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Neither of them spent more than a semester in college. No instead they became radio ‘shock DJ’s’ who transitioned into the perfect mouthpieces for the sales show that decries what Trump calls the ‘lamestream media.’
For that reason Mr. Trump claims that The New York Times is ‘failing’ — when its profitability is at its highest. What the Times, the Washington Post, the major television networks are all guilty of is simply not praising the President and the administration’s policy of rooting out and destroying the “deep state.” Instead, the journalistic world view is equated to a simple devious warning that they are “the enemy of the people.”
What can one do about this political strategy to degrade college education, reading of books and newspapers, and the personal attacks on reporters (“You are a terrible reporter” chastises our President at a recent Covid-19 presser)? First, read David Furm’s essay of April 7, 2020 entitled, “This Is Trump’s Fault: The president is failing, and Americans are paying for his failures.” He focuses on the lies and incompetence of this Administration. It is a clarion call to all Americans about the irresponsible actions of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Furm’s conclusion: “’I don’t take responsibility at all,’ said President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden on March 13. Those words will probably end up as the epitaph of his presidency, the single sentence that sums it all up.”
Encourage all you can via social media to read it. Be an advocate of reading. And when people ‘Say, oh well, that’s just some Democrat, left wing fake news, please inform them that Mr. David Furm is the conservative Republican who wrote the speeches for the president they likely admired and voted for — George W. Bush.
Maybe, just maybe, that will make them do what Stephen King hopes will occur: think.
Here is the link to the article. Be safe…and read a good book.
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