Mathematics is a language. But innumeracy is also a language and our president is fluent.
It's not just that he exaggerates, lies, and says things that make no sense when talking about numbers "often" no this is something deeper.
He is deeply committed to *never* speaking about any statistic or numerical fact in a way that would suggest that it's important to understand how basic math works, or even that it exists at all.
This isn't just ignorance or laziness, it's one of his core values.
And perhaps there is something pretentious, anxiety inducing, something deeply nerdy and off putting about knowing your way around numbers. Speaking about them with care.
That's our fault, mathematics teachers. We can't keep traumatizing the youth and alienating people from mathematical reasoning.
It opens a door for some people to be seduced by the comforting notion that things that you don't understand can't possibly be important.
Often we will pick out some instance of the president making a mathematical error. Abusing percentages, confusing billions and trillions... a lot of people nodding along pretending they agree and understand that he's making no sense... don't really know what we're so mad about. And they don't want to admit that since we make it so clear we think everyone who doesn't get it is hopelessly ignorant.
I personally have a problem with "I'm not stupid, I just suck at math." You don't suck at math. Anyone of reasonable intelligence can handle everything up to calculus. You suck at effort. You'd rather not try to learn math, because it doesn't come as easy as other subjects. Believe it or not, this was me as a kid, but I still put forth the effort because I wanted to be a goddamn educated person.
Fundamentally I agree, although I will try to be nicer about it. Mostly because I think there are barriers (often barriers that serve the powerful) that keep people from learning these things.
And no matter how old you are or how late it is if you are willing to try to get it I'll help. I will forget the resentment I feel about it.
@futurebird I teach (mostly) basic math at a community college. What I battle most is fear of math brought on mostly by poor teaching in earlier grades. These are kids that mostly struggled in school were either left behind in math or allowed to just pass without really understanding.
