Is Donald Trump functionally illiterate?
Is Donald Trump functionally illiterate? This is the question “sending social media into a frenzy.” Let’s look at the evidence. Donald Trump doesn’t seem to much like to read. Trump would prefer far more essential things, such as hiding classified documents in his john, wolfing down McDonald’s cheeseburgers, throwing ketchup bottles, and last but certainly not least, posting illiterate screeds that make no sense on truth social.
But is he functionally ILLITERATE? Pete Davidson certainly thinks so. Davidson is an actor and comedian of SNL fame, and a story he told about the man behind the myth and legend of illiteracy, has resurfaced. Trump, Davidson explained, served as a guest host on Saturday Night Live in November of 2015.
Davidson, speaking in 2016, claimed that Trump does not know HOW to read. He said a skit was altered because of Trump’s illiteracy, where he wound up calling his daughter:” turkey legs.” It all started when trump had a line requiring him to say: “OK, let’s get out of here. Turkey Legs?”
An easy enough line to say for most people. Only Trump, Davidson claims, could not read the line properly. So he said: “OK, let’s get out of here, turkey legs.” One comma can make all the difference. “He called his daughter turkey legs,” Davidson explained. Naturally, turkey images are now floating around, lost in the space of social media, to the amusement of many.
Davidson continued, “He doesn’t get it. He thinks that everybody’s laughing with him, but we’re all laughing at him.” Ah, this goes to the core of Trump’s psyche. Yes, we all laugh at him. Laughter is the key to joy and for many of us, laughing—loudly, righteously, and freely—at Donald Trump gives us ever so much pleasure.
So no, I doubt Trump has ever read — oh, I don’t know — 1984 for example. ( If he had, he’d no doubt see himself as Winston, not Big Brother, which tells us Trump is illiterate in thought as well as in reading.) Naturally, social media turned into guffawing clowns, each person eager for their piece of the laugh-at-Trump pie.
“He IS illiterate. The only thing Trump’s ever read is a fast food menu.” We have never been born witness to Trump reading, have we? We have never seen Trump leaf through the pages of a work of literature — perhaps that is also because he doesn’t know what literature actually is.
