Not dumb. Simply ignorant

As a loyal American, (bugles in the background), I’ve tried to find something positive to say about Donald Trump before he gets sworn in again. For worse, for days now, I’ve said to myself often, “There has got to be something positive an impartial observer like me can say without blushing.” I think I finally have found it. He is not dumb.

I don’t care what other people who know him better think or say. He is not dumb. He puts his pants on one leg at a time. He uses a handkerchief when he blows his nose. He uses his bathroom sink for washing his hands. On the other hand, he is just amazingly ignorant.

Donald Trump, again today, without need or prompting, turned to the Panama Canal and his intent to take it back. I’m not making this up. Here is a headline: “Trump declines to rule out military or economic force to take it back.” He said the United States should acquire Greenland, threatened to retake the Panama Canal and mused about using “economic force to make Canada the 51st American state.”

There is apparently no way to stop his ego mania, his delusion about his power even as president of the United States. Our only hope for a peaceful coherent foreign policy rests with Congress. I am distressed, as an Iowan, that our senators remain silent about Trump’s Loony Tunes approach to our international future. He would need senatorial approval for some, maybe all, of his unlikely goals.

Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst could spare us ridicule and isolation if they spoke up and labeled absurdity what it is. It is not partisan privilege to remain silent when our president makes us look foolish and you know it’s so; to tolerate irrational, impossible things he wants. Other nations are not likely to follow him.

I think I have pretty good company. Here’s the first Inaugural address, given, you know, by President George Washington: “Gentlemen of the Senate and the House of Representatives … The welfare of our country is the great object to which our cares and efforts ought to be directed, and I shall derive great satisfaction from a cooperation with you in the pleasing though arduous task insuring to our fellow citizens the blessings which they have a right to expect from a free, efficient, and equal government.”

I hope there are a couple Republican readers who take me and George Washington seriously and haven’t put their citizenship in hock to Trump. I don’t often pray, but I pray today for the growth of Republican courage that allows Grassley and Ernst to speak out, fulfilling their role as Senator, for all Iowans, not toadies, while giving no encouragement through silence as Donald Trump wanders his fantasy world of American hegemony

After President Trump has taken the canal, by force if necessary, invaded Canada with the Iowa National Guard, and surrounded Greenland, I expect he will seek to abolish a two-term limit on the presidency and declare himself President for Life. I’m amending my prayer to ask God to speed up the process of showing President-elect Trump as no George Washington.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.