Trump, a poor example for young people

To the Editor,

     I’ve been watching Donald Trump be America’s president since January 20, 2017. I’m not very impressed with what he is teaching America’s kids. I’ve tried to imagine what his curriculum is in regard to educating our kids – what follows is what I think it might be.

     LESSON 1: IT IS OKAY TO LIE. It is okay to lie. I lie every day. I’ve lied all my life and it sure hasn’t hurt me – look at me – I’m president of the U.S. And another thing about lies is if you repeat them over and over people will start to believe they are true.

     LESSON 2: ALTERNATIVE FACTS AND FAKE NEWS. If people accuse you of lying tell them they must have “alternative facts” or they’ve been watching “fake news” on the wrong TV channels.

     LESSON 3: FOX NEWS. The “fake news” channels are CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and MSNBC. The only channel that tells the truth and treats me fairly is FOX. I want all of America’s young people to start watching FOX. My favorites on Fox are that Hannity guy and the morning show called FOX AND FRIENDS.

     LESSON 4: THE CENTER OF ATTENTION. I want you students to always try to be the “center of attention.” Do whatever you have to do to get the other kids to pay attention to you. Once you achieve that you can kind of run the show and dominate the conversation. It has really worked for me, don’t you think?

     LESSON 5: FEEL FREE TO USE SARCASM AND RIDICULE. If there are people you don’t like use sarcasm and ridicule on them. During the campaign I did this a lot. Do you remember names like “Little Marco,” “Crooked Hillary,” “Low energy Jeb,” “Rocket Man” – and they worked ­– I beat all of them.

     LESSON 6: BE A BULLY. I know you’ve been taught that being a bully is not a good way to live your life but I happen to believe there is nothing wrong with it. I bully people all the time and by doing so it makes them fear me and I love to see people cower In front of me.

     LESSON 7: NEVER ADMIT YOU'RE WRONG. Never admit you’re wrong or take the blame for anything. Just accuse somebody else for the problem. Look, Hitler blamed the Jews and I blame the Muslims, Latinos, Obama, Democrats, Liberals, Canada, Mexico and even our European allies for our problems. And a lot of Americans agree with me.

     LESSON 8: ALWAYS GET REVENGE. To always get revenge has been part of my DNA forever. And when I do get ridiculed I hit back ten times harder than they hit me. Obama made fun of me one time in 2011 at the National Correspondents Dinner. I vowed then that I would get revenge. And now I'm doing it by undoing everything he did as president – that’ll teach him to mess with me.

     LESSON 9: SCREW YOUR FRIENDS. One thing I’ve learned in life is it is okay to screw your friends, especially if it will benefit you. Trudeau of Canada, Macron of France and Merkel of Germany do not like many of my policies and they said so at the G-7 meeting in Canada in June. If that’s the way they feel then I say to heck with them. I’ll just get friendlier with Kim Jong Un of North Korea and Putin of Russia. They are my kind of leaders, and I like the fact they don’t have to put up with a whole bunch of fake news like I do.

     With these lessons the odds are pretty slim that Trump will be selected “educator of the year.” I would say he is not a “great role model” for the young people of America.

Peter Bungum

Anamosa, Iowa