Just Saying | Is Donald Trump an idiot? The answer is truly worrying
Yonden Lhatoo finds questions about Donald Trump’s mental fitness not only justified but ominous as well, given the real threat of war and disaster under his leadership
Is the 45th president of the United States truly an idiot?
It’s an old question that’s being asked with increasing frequency these days, brought to the fore by some of Donald Trump’s own cabinet members testifying to that effect.
During a recent ceremony at the White House to honour Navajo veterans of the second world war who saved so many American lives by using their native language as a code that the enemy could never crack, he made a jaw-droppingly inappropriate attempt at levity that could only be described as infantile and imbecilic.
“You were here long before any of us were here,” he told the elderly code talkers. “Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”
He was taking a petty swipe at Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, a political opponent whom he has repeatedly mocked over her dubious claim of Cherokee ancestry. Even if Warren made it up, there’s nothing remotely funny about using Pocahontas as a caricature of native American heritage and ancestry, real or fabricated.