Is Donald Trump just a typical american?

In this I wish to discuss how we perhaps misinterpret Donald Trump. Americans jave a great belief in the "Excepionalism of the USA", perhaps than most people have about the place they live. I frequently watch on Youtube various postings about Americans misunderstanding Europe, not just Europe, really the whole world. Many Americans do not seem to realise that outside America is not the same as America. This might seem an odd statement at first  but the first time Americans visit other countries they always seem surprised that things do not work the same. One rather trivial example is that ice is not poured into glasses and water automatically. This may be because we live in countries which aren't quite as hot but the use of ice is not a universal activity. Also though the dollar, that is the US dollar, is a very powerful currency it is not universally accepted as cash in most parts of the world. Even years ago when I worked at chemist shop in Aldgate, especially on a Sunday when most other shops were closed, Americans would just pass me a handful of cash and say "can't sort out your money, just take what you need". I think Donald Trump is just like these Americans who seem not to understand at all that the rest of the world is not America and when he says things he expects other countries to behave exactly as he thinks USA would. This comes as a surprise. That is not to say he is not a very dangerous man The reason for his danger is the  ridiculous position of authority he has achieved in the United States of America as well as the leeway given to him by their legislative branch which is meant to hold the executive under some sort of control.

Of course it's also the issue of his clearly failing mental state but this is combined with those around him pretending it isn't happening. Just listen to his press secretary pretending he didn't say Iceland when he meant Greenland Of course it might be that he really does think Iceland and Greenland are the same place. When I was in America, many years ago now, in a university town where you might have assumed a reasonable level of education people had no idea where New Zealand was and thought somehow it was part of Australia. (It is actually  separated by a large sea 1000 miles away.) Another example of the American ignorance of the rest of the world concerns a friend who had taken a degree in English from an English university but had been born and brought up in the West Indies where her father was Scottish and a consultant surgeon and her mother was Canadian. The university was trying to insist that she should take an exam to prove she was fluent in English Not seeming to realise that most of the West Indies speak English as their first language and that she had a degree in English from an English university. They eventually relented when they realised that her mother was Canadian and they were aware that Canadians spoke English. A similar example from the same place was of a Swede who spoke very fluent and good English but she pronounced hot as hot and not as they tend to say in the midwest hat. They kept correcting her, not accepting that there is more than one way of pronouncing English words and and not everyone speaks with an American accent.  Talking to an American in the UK who had spent some time here, she explained to me that one thing that worried her was that when she was listening to someone on the radio she could not discern whether the person was coloured or not. This obviously surprised me because I could not understand why you would expect this. Obviously in America there is a coloured accent which seems to cover the whole country. These are all examples I personally have had which shows the failure of many Americans to understand that the rest of the world is not America.

I do not know how much Donald Trump has travelled outside of the United States of America But I do wonder whether many of his attitudes are coloured by his lack of experience of the rest of the world and, when he does travel as president, he is surrounded all the time by the trappings of America. One of the problems is also that Americans seem to have very little understanding of either their own history or that of the rest of the world. I'm not sure if Trump is aware of the War between the United States of America and Canada in 1812. (It isn't clear that Canada was at this point defined as Canada so the war was actually between the United States of America and the UK. This war lasted for two years and ended up exactly where it began, that is the border between Canada and the USA were defined after that war and were  exactly where they were before the USA invaded. Trump has often claimed that the USA has defended Canada though I'm not sure what evidence he has to justify this claim. It is worth noting that the USA did not enter the Second World War until the USA was invaded by Japan at Pearl Harbour. The Second World War between the UK Canada etc started on September the first 1939.  This is approximately two years before the USA entered the war. I'm not sure one could argue that the USA rushed in to help Canada in that war. Another thing which has surprised me has been the Americans do not seem to realise how much support they have given to the IRA over the years. When the twin towers came down  in 2001, I was working with a group of Americans in the UK. Obviosly we were appalled but what surprised me was their horror that anyone could blow up a civilian target as an act of terror.  When I pointed out that IRA had done this for some years in both Northern Ireland and mainland UK they seemed completely suprised, especially when I pointed out the the famous St Patrick's Day parades always raised money to support organisations which helped the IRA.

As Mencken said "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."  Despite his other faults he seems to have been right about that.