Trump is in the news again. How can I write about me, my favorite subject, if I always have to talk about Trump?
How about this: I really want to understand Trump. He tells us no politician in history has been treated worse than him. I want to know why. Really, I do. What is wrong with me in wanting to know that?
I’ve always been like that. My third-grade teacher wrote on my progressive, woo-woo liberal Seattle school report card that I was well liked and “bright” but “very, very, very slow.” I was so slow because I wouldn’t learn anything by rote. I needed teachers to explain everything to me. Fortunately there were no actual grades that year, I got something like “recommended for advancement.” They graduated me up and out of their hair.
Needing explanations for everything caused some serious problems. Some sorts of knowledge simply don’t lend themselves easily to explanation. Why is Albany the capital of New York state? I’m sure there is a reason, but what’s the odds a third-grade teacher in Seattle will be versed in that piece of East Coast history? So what does that mean? It means the weird Browning kid won’t learn the capital of New York state until we can find a history book in the library that will satisfy him. I’m pretty sure they never found one. I still don’t believe Albany is the capital of New York.
Memorizing poems did not happen. “Repeat the line: Under the spreading chestnut tree.” “Why does he say spreading? Don’t all trees spread?” “Just repeat the line.” “Why does it have to be a chestnut tree? Don’t willow trees spread more?” “Just repeat the line.” “Where is this going? What’s my motivation?” “I give up.”
Mathematics was what saved me from being regarded as dull-witted. This happened just before I turned 6: My mother was forcing me to memorize the 12-times table. It was dragging. At first she expected me to memorize it by rote as if it were a very ugly meaningless 144-line chant. I made her tell me what “times” means.
Then about halfway in, I said we can skip about half these. For example, 8 times 6 is going to be the same as 6 times 8. She said, “You don’t know that, I don’t know that. You’ll just have to learn them separately.”
A few hours and much thought later I proved to her mathematically why the order doesn’t matter in times. My first theorem ever. The horrible woman still made me memorize “8 times 6 is 48” separately from “6 times 8 is 48.” I’m absolutely positive that my mother would have voted for Trump last year, if she hadn’t died in 1980. I think my mother and Trump are really two peas in a pod.
My mother thought no mother in history had ever been treated worse than her by her son. So I asked her why. It wasn’t enough to be told that. I needed to know the basis for her claim.
She started by pointing out that I hadn’t died in childbirth and spared her the trouble of raising me. I thought that was a good argument to start with but incomplete. It can’t be the whole reason, because as I look around I notice most mothers with children — no, in fact all of them — share this property, that the children in question had not died in childbirth. So how would I be worse than all of them? There is nothing to indicate anything exceptional about her or me.
So then she said I was worse because I was more trouble to raise. I said, “In what way?” “In that way.” “What way is that?”
She said, “Stop asking so many damn questions!”
So I think that’s what my mother and Trump have in common, and why one or the other of them is the most tortured human to have ever lived.
I would say that Trump has been the most tortured of the two, by reason of having lived longer and been asked more questions. And it’s not going to get any better.
Dr. Wes Browning is a one time math professor and three times homeless. He has been involved with Real Change since he supplied the art for the first cover in November of 1994. This is his regular humor column, Adventures in Irony.
Read the full May 24 issue.