Today’s episode in the comic strip Pearls before Swine continues the story of Pig’s campaign to be elected Village Idiot. A neighbor nominated him for this office. Pig was deeply flattered and looked ahead to the election. But a rival emerged in the person of Larry the Croc who, with his family’s encouragement, put himself forward as a candidate. When asked in today’s episode how his campaign against Larry for Village Idiot is going, Pig says “Not good. But then we heard Facebook will run political ads even if they’re not  true. So we started running ads about him.” “What are you saying?” asks Rat, and the Pig replies “Larry can read.” The Rat observes “That’s defamatory,” and the Pig explains “We think it will ruin him.” As so often, today’s Pearls before Swine portrays America in a microcosm.

I have always thought that the election of Donald Trump exposed the failure of public education in the United States. Successful democracy requires informed and thoughtful voters, but we have learned from the election and the continuing cult of the satanic Trump that a large part of our population have not passed out of middle school. Yes, maybe at one time they were able to read, but, finding that burdensome, they’ve turned to commercial and right-wing media with its unrelenting propaganda. Of course, their education gave them no capacity for critical thought, so they are unable to see how they are manipulated and abused by the forces of plutocracy. Thought involves some effort, but these are like the sort A.E. Housman once described, when he wrote

                                           Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink 

                                           for fellows whom it hurts to think.

The peril of this condition has been made even more obvious by the reaction of these people to COVID19. Guided by their Great Leader, they rejoice in refusing to cooperate with the efforts of the medical community to keep the virus in check. For fear that the solitude and calm caused by the pandemic might give them an inkling of the extent of their folly, they insist on their delusional “rights,” the right to have fun, the right to crowd together and stroke one another’s egos, the right to show that they are tough and indifferent to prudence and truth. So, thanks to these childish and reckless citizens, the virus rages on and on. Under these circumstances, what claim has America to any greatness, how can America be regarded as anything but pathetic.