In U.S. News & World Report I take a look at something that has struck me the past few months: President Trump talks a lot about making America great but not much about American greatness:
Here’s something curious and hidden in plain sight: For all his talk about “making America great again,” President Donald Trump spends precious little time actually talking about American greatness. From the campaign to his dark nomination acceptance, a dystopian inaugural address, right up to the present, when is the last time you heard the president talking about the strengths and beauty of America with the frequency or fervor he talks about perceived ills or his critics? A city upon a hill this is not…
…Perhaps the president simply doesn’t know any better, and, under his coarse instincts, there is no intellectual foundation. He seems to have made it through college without encountering a fact. This is a man who didn’t realize the Japanese might be touchy about nuclear weapons and can’t distinguish between the legacies of George Washington and Robert E. Lee. (This is also worth remembering the next time someone fetishizes fancy higher education degrees – the president has one – or when someone tells you that minorities get all the breaks in higher education)…
