I’ve been a Mr. Smartypants snob most of my life. I started reading well before kindergarten, (all the adults around me, my parents, aunts, uncles, much older cousins and grandparents supplementing my folks, were always reading something, so, I guess, I didn’t want to be left out), I was immersed in constant pre- and post-natal bilingual, grown-up chit chat, I aced the Iowa Tests, (do they still have those?), in the 1st and 5th grades which opened me to the world of advanced studies, I had, (luck-of-the-draw), pretty good elementary school teachers and all of those above-mentioned family members, eager to contribute apropos and inappropriate extracurricular materials and the nurture/nature, (again, l-o-t-d), combo of a raging curiosity and an academic environment to pursue it. The nature part gave me, (if testing for such a thing has any reliability), a highish IQ and it’s knowing that, not the being born Jewish thing, that made me feel like one of the “chosen people”. I am only semi-proficient at not acting like a total asshole with regards to flaunting what mental gifts I was given and reading about and meeting much, much, much smarter people has made me, humbly, less so. I love learning new things. I still devour the printed word in almost all of its forms and I greedily seek out conversation and debate, doing my best to keep an open mind when I deem the theses of others to be worthwhile and la-la-la-ing in my head, (can’t help it), when not. But not a word I’ve read, nothing I’ve heard, not a billboard, not a doodle nor a meme nor hat or t-shirt slogan has given me the slightest clue to the most perplexing question of our time, “How can anybody support a whining, lying, cheating, mentally deficient, misogynistic, egomaniacal, criminally unapologetic fat tub of lard, (did I say “stupid”?), like Donald Trump?” The dumbest among us, (there’s a country song title if I ever heard one), can’t possibly be so blind or feel so unappreciated that they choose to wallow in the false promises of a flimflam artist whose entire life has been to openly shit on everybody…can they? Obviously, they can, but why? Do guns and abortion wipe out universal health benefits, educational opportunity, respectful living wages, drinkable water, human dignity, honesty and lawfulness? Isn’t it plain as day that this asshole doesn’t give a crap about gun rights or evangelical beliefs except when they make the proponents of them hate anyone who thinks differently? Huh?