In 1958 one of the most politically influential novels, The Ugly American, was published.  Of the books’ core revelations the one that was most renowned was that of a foreign journalist who had lived in the US and said, “For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States.  A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They are loud and ostentatious.”

Well, folks…times have changed…or not?  The “Ugly American” is no longer limited to the loud and ostentatious living pretentiously (although Mr. Trump certainly fits nicely into that description).  No…today’s Ugly Americans are the people who gather to yell at Hispanic and Asian school children, “Go back to your country!” and scratch swastikas on cars they deem might be owned by non-Christians.  They’re the people who hated Obama because he was black but complain if their disability check is a day late as they had planned to go 4-wheeling that weekend and need the money for beer and cartridges for their AK-47s.  They’re the ones who prefer “Christian home schooling” for their kids who never learn enough to fill out an application at McDonalds.  They’re the folks who wouldn’t stoop so low as to picking fruit or working farm fields for wages but blame those who are doing it as their reason for their inability to find a “decent” job.   They’re to ones who want to get rid of “Obamacare” but claim they’d definitely support an Affordable Care Act.  They’re the ones who believe the “American Dream” is something to be handed to you for free on your 21^st birthday and after that you just lay back and life is a breeze.

Yep…ugly is as ugly does!