The Straight Dope

Hello. Did you read about or see the excruciating exchange between Donald Trump and President Joseph Boakai of Liberia? To summarize: In a phenomenal display of presidential ignorance, and in a phenomenally condescending manner, Trump complimented Boakai’s command of English, making it crystal clear to the foreign leader he was hosting, and everyone else in the room, that he had no idea that Liberia’s official language is … English.

(suggestion: if you are reading this in an email, click on the headline so you get the latest amended, emended and addended version.)

Liberia was born in the 19th century as a colony of freed slaves from the United States, thus becoming the second independent republic in Africa. It basically adopted all the principles in the U.S. Constitution for its own. Its capital, Monrovia, was named after President James Monroe, who supported the colonization movement.

Trump obviously knew nothing of that. Trump knew nothing of nothing.

If you haven’t seen it yet, brace yourself and watch this, and note the painful, painted-on smiles of all the Americans in the room. Sort of the way a parent in a playground would try to cope with the fact that, in full view of other parents, his or her little Johnny was eating cat shit off the ground:

The always excellent Jeff Tiedrich, in his substack, shared this image:

And then Tiedrich wrote we should be grateful that Trump didn’t ask Mr. Boakai if he ever boiled someone in a pot.

The astounding thing about Trump is that he doesn’t care that he is an ignoramus. He feels he can bull into any situation factually and intellectually vacant, and get by on his awesome charisma and natural conversational genius, neither of which he actually possesses.

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So here are ten facts that will be stunning and informative to him and that might help him begin to overcome his unworldly, all-encompassing cluelessness:

Cats and dogs can’t have babies together!

Pickles are cucumbers!

Nigeria and Niger are completely different countries!

There are women who enjoy sex!

You can’t dig your way to China!

Jesus was Jewish!

Germany doesn’t call itself “Germany”!

Women use the bathroom for the same things men do. They’re not just in there primping!

There are people in the world who don’t understand English even if you yell.

Waiters are people.

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