The Incredible Trump

Dear Nicaragua,

How incredible that the noble American people have voted for a man like Donald Trump. What disrespect for the White House and for the prestigious presidents who have passed through it, from John Adams in the 1800s to Barack Obama; men who celebrated the history of the United States like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and many others who knew how to defend their country with honor and who made the United States the world power that it continues to be today.

In the 1960s, I was invited by the State Department to a two-week tour of the U.S. They let me choose the sites I wanted to see. Since I wrote scripts and created the Pancho Madrigal regional program, my fondness for rural areas was known, so I chose to spend two or three days living with a farmworker family.

They took me to Omaha, in the geographic center of the nation, and installed me in a farmworkers’ house, a farm where I could observe the behavior of that family: simple, welcoming. At night, they gathered their neighbors to do impressions with me. They lived in full harmony. The husband drove a tractor and plowed the land, preparing the future harvest; the woman took care of the housework; two teenage children drove their car to school about 10 miles away.

On these types of evenings, we were able to admire the simplicity and everyone’s good behavior. They asked simple questions. They asked why our countries were poor because they paid good money in taxes to help the Latin American people. I replied that the money was not always well spent, and there was little control in the handling of government funds. They asked if we had schools and universities. I realized that I was not on a street in New York or Chicago, but that I was talking to simple people, the very heart of the American people, learning how they felt, how they thought, what their aspirations and desires were. There was a tranquility, work and a peace that I could observe in the simplicity of that town where I spent three days and two nights.

For this reason, I find it hard to understand how such a healthy and simple people could vote for someone who, from his own campaign, boasted that he could grope any woman anywhere, a candidate capable of disqualifying another, like a woman running for presidenty, because she was ugly. “Can you imagine that as the face of our next president?” Trump asked contemptuously. Another extreme vulgarity that the voters passed off as one of the candidate’s eccentricities.

So why are we surprised when this ill-educated, arrogant man expresses himself by saying we are “m” countries*? That is his nature, his educational level, what we call here a work horse. But his millions do not give him the right to insult our countries without even knowing them, without studying our history and knowing the courage and talent of our men and women. A country in which a genius like Rubén Darío is born is not a country of “m,”, nor are countries where true heroes have been born, heroes who who since independence have been fighting against American mercenaries, often sponsored by their own governments.

And surely he is unaware, but to Trump’s shame, we have won; we have dispelled countries. With wick rifles, machetes, stones and arrows, we have won battles like San Jacinto against the many incursions that characters like Trump have sponsored in our countries. Finally, it would be the last straw, if at the end of this disastrous period, he were re-elected for a second term. That would be really disappointing.

*Editor’s Note: Although accurately translated, the author’s reference to “m” and “m countries” in this commentary is unclear, but it may reflect a vulgarity in connection with how the author believes President Trump views his country.