Late at night I often listen to BBC on my local NPR station. One thing I often find interesting is the interviews with controversial figures from all over the world. The interviewers ask really hard questions, much harder than I ever hear from US journalists. They put the interviewees, mostly high level government officials, on the spot. The interviewees, for their part, mostly put up intelligent defenses, even if they’re full of shit.
Tonight it was different. Tonight the BBC interviewed Peter Navarro, an associate professor at some university in my country who’s apparently an adviser to the Trump campaign. The BBC didn’t really even have to put Navarro on the spot. He was full of shit from the start, and not at all intelligent. As soon as Navarro opened his mouth, he sounded so ignorant that it almost seemed like the interviewers were aghast and thrown off their game. Navarro’s answers had no substance, zilch. What Navarro said was ignorant and really, really, really would reinforce anyone who holds the stereotype of Americans as dangerous buffoons. The interviewers seemed really disgusted and finally cut him off. I’m pretty sure the rest of the world is laughing their ass off at how pathetic a representative he was of a presidential candidate in my country. It was totally awful. I’m ashamed.
Dear rest of the world, all of us aren’t like this, but too many are. I apologize that we let people like Trump and his ilk rise high enough to get your attention and to cause such a dangerous situation. It’s because of our decades long complacency and dereliction of our civic duty to vote and be politically engaged. We have been stupid that way. It’s another symptom of too much privilege and too little empathy and foresight, too little wisdom and humility. We truly lack the kind of humility that comes from being fully engaged with humanity. I’m sorry. I will do everything I can to make sure that people like Donald Trump and his surrogates and his endorsers never come anywhere close to the presidency of the United States of America, a country that I love deeply.