Reality Check: This is a very serious "coup attempt"

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

123. I was about to dismiss your thought with points similar to those already made in replies to you,

but thinking about it more, I believe you do have something of a point. The participation trophy was an attempt to recognize that most did their best and deserve some praise for that, or at least ought not be denigrate as "losers." However, I believe society has to find a better balance between the stark "winners vs losers", and "everyone's a winner!"

I was truly shocked at the number of students, in the graduate program I completed with fellow students mostly younger than myself, who lacked basic knowledge and writing skills. (Even one of my professors wrote, in her syllabus, that her interest in the subject had been "peeked" by something or other. OMG. And that's just one example.) That such academically challenged students were accepted into the program in the first place and that they all received good grades and, ultimately, the degree seemed to proof of something gone amiss, though I'm sure it's more complicated than the pat answers most would give.

For instance, the "failed American public education system." I've posted about that before, only to be ignored, and I'm not going into that right now, but I worked in public education for many years and have some insight that most people who use that tired explanation don't.

However, while our nation has never before elevated to the high and mighty office of POTUS someone as downright ignorant as Trump, in local political races, it's not been unusual. And even the fact that many people voted for Bush because they thought he would be a great guy to have a beer with (lacking "AND he'd be good at X, Y, and Z" requirements for the presidency, or that people said they didn't like Obama as POTUS because he used words they would have to look up in the dictionary, point toward an anti-intellectualism that is a huge part of the problem.

And that's now new, but, by contrast, Franklin Roosevelt was clearly an elite, used a lot of words that weren't in the vocabulary of large swaths of Americans, and no one imagined themselves having a beer with him (and he had all those "socialist" ideas) yet he was elected four times.

Anyway, as I said, it's complicated. And I'm not actually in the right frame of mind to get into it further just now. So, I apologize if I can't follow up on any response you might have.