Let’s stop pretending. America loves to believe it is the most enlightened, most advanced, most progressive nation on Earth. The myth of American exceptionalism is repeated so often that many Americans themselves believe it without question. But the evidence shows otherwise: a significant portion of Americans are not just misinformed—they are willfully ignorant, complacent, and addicted to easy answers.
Donald Trump is not the cause of this problem. He is not some freak accident in American politics. He is the reflection of a society that has grown comfortable in its stupidity. He is the mirror in which America’s intellectual bankruptcy is laid bare for the world to see.
For a country that spends more per student than any other—around $18,600 per student per year according to the OECD—the outcomes are nothing short of embarrassing. A 2023 national literacy study found that 28% of U.S. adults read at or below Level 1—struggling with anything more than basic sentences. Less than half scored at Level 3 or above, the level needed to comprehend and analyse complex text. In plain terms, this means almost a third of Americans cannot meaningfully read a newspaper, interpret medical instructions, or understand a rental agreement.
And literacy is only one measure. Surveys routinely show that many Americans cannot locate Ukraine on a map, even while their government spends billions funding a war there. A 2022 poll revealed that 1 in 5 Americans thought the sun revolves around the Earth. Large swathes of the population believe angels are real but cannot explain the basics of how their government works.
Yes, America boasts Ivy League universities and Nobel laureates. It has Silicon Valley and Wall Street. But those elite islands of intelligence are not representative of the nation at large. The majority of its citizens are swimming in a sea of mediocrity. For every Harvard graduate, there are millions of Americans who can be easily duped by conspiracy theories, “miracle cures,” and politicians selling them fairy tales.
That’s not leadership. That’s intellectual bankruptcy.
It would be comforting to think that American ignorance is just an individual failing. But it is not. It is systemic. The machinery of American society profits from dumbness.
The media thrives on sensationalism. Outrage gets more clicks than reason. Fear sells more advertising than nuance. Social media has turned ignorance into performance art: the louder and dumber your take, the more “likes” you get.
The education system drills students for standardised tests rather than cultivating critical thinking. Schools are judged not by how much students can question, but by how well they can tick multiple-choice boxes. This produces workers, not thinkers. Consumers, not citizens.
And of course, politics thrives in this swamp. Dumb voters are easier to manipulate. Dumb consumers buy more junk. Dumb workers never challenge exploitation. The American system doesn’t just tolerate ignorance—it requires it.
This is where Trump comes in. Trump didn’t invent dumb America. He simply understood it better than anyone else. He gave it shape. He gave it slogans. He gave it scapegoats.
“Build the Wall. Lock Her Up. Drain the Swamp. Make America Great Again.”
Simple words for a simple crowd. Each phrase is a bumper sticker, a chant, a meme. No nuance, no policy depth—just emotional sugar shots for a public addicted to easy answers.
Trump himself is not particularly intelligent. He is not a master strategist or a deep thinker. What he is, however, is an instinctive salesman. He understood that in dumb America, intelligence is a liability and simplicity is king. He wasn’t smarter—he was simply better at selling stupidity back to those who craved it.
The tragedy is not confined to American borders. Dumb America exports dumb decisions, and the rest of the world pays the price.
When Washington denies climate change, villages in Bangladesh and islands in the Pacific get flooded. When a U.S. president launches trade wars over Twitter tantrums, factories in Asia and Africa shut down. When America spends trillions on wars it doesn’t understand, entire regions collapse into chaos.
And then there is America’s cultural export. Through Hollywood, TikTok, and Netflix, American anti-intellectualism contaminates young minds worldwide. Shallow entertainment replaces deeper cultural traditions. Instant gratification replaces patience. Loud opinion replaces informed debate.
When the most powerful country in the world is run on ignorance, the whole world is forced to pay the price.
And yet, despite this decline, America still imagines itself as the world’s teacher. Particularly when it comes to India.
We are endlessly lectured about freedom, democracy, human rights, minority rights—by a nation where literacy barely scrapes 72%, where over 40% of citizens believe fake news, and where a man who told an average of 21 lies a day is President.
Think about the absurdity of that. The world’s “model democracy” has re-elected man who once suggested injecting disinfectant as a cure for COVID.
India has its flaws. Nobody denies it. We argue endlessly. We are noisy, chaotic, divided, and contradictory. We fight in Parliament. We bicker on television. We rage on WhatsApp. But beneath the chaos, there is thinking. There is debate. There is questioning.
Our civilisation has been challenging itself for 5,000 years—from Vedic philosophy to Buddhist dialogues, from medieval reform movements to constitutional democracy. We don’t always agree, but we argue. We interrogate. We refuse to be spoon-fed easy answers.
That is the essential difference. India is messy, but thinking. America is polished, but dumb.
So let me say it plainly: if dumb America produces Trump, don’t come wagging your finger at India. Do not lecture us on democracy when your own citizens can’t tell fact from fiction. Do not lecture us on freedom when your own Congress is paralysed by stupidity. Do not lecture us on human rights when your prisons are overflowing with minorities.
Fix your literacy. Fix your gullibility. Fix your democracy. Clean your own backyard before preaching to us.
Because the truth is simple: Trump is not an anomaly. He is America in the raw. He is the mirror that shows what the United States has become—a nation addicted to stupidity, proud of ignorance, and hostile to thought.
And until America recognises that reality, it will keep producing Trumps. And the rest of the world will keep paying the price, while America will have to live with Trump and his obsession for a Nobel Peace Award.
