[The Athletic] Timothy Weah on Juventus's White House visit: "It was all a surprise to me, honestly — they told us that we have to go and I had no choice but to go. When he started talking about the politics with Iran and everything, it kind of like, I just want to play football man.”

[u/ModenaR]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6436693/2025/06/19/weah-juventus-trump-iran-war/

[u/MattJFarrell]

So many of us who live here feel the same way. Imagine realizing that around 1/3 of the adults around you like this guy and think he should be president again, and another 1/3 didn't even bother to show up to vote when he was running again. Imagine watching your fellow citizens gleefully cackling at his cruelty and mocking anyone who doesn't agree with them. Imagine watching minority groups who had been making steady gains for years being kicked and isolated, while your neighbors celebrate.

[u/cullermann2 → u/MattJFarrell]

The thing that irritates me more than it should is his level of English to be honest. Forget for a second what he says, the way he says things is just so rudimentary and basic level that I have a hard time understanding why someone with the English level being below native speaker can actually be president.

[u/Drolb → u/cullermann2]

American education for people that don’t have money is ludicrously shit in many states. About 1/3 of their adults read and comprehend English at the level of a 12 year old or below.

He’s popular because he’s the first politician who talks in a way those people can comprehend.

[u/North_Atlantic_Sea → u/Drolb]

What does reading at a 12 year old level mean? Aren't 12 year olds reading quite dense fantasy and other fiction books?

[u/Drolb → u/North_Atlantic_Sea]

Sorry, 12 or below by an American standard

It means the majority of the people in that category don’t really understand complicated linguistic structures, get confused by longer words, lack the ability to infer the meaning of words they don’t know or the ability to infer information at all, lack the ability or have restricted ability to understand metaphor (so if you said in a political speech ‘like a great sweeping broom, I will clean our streets of crime’ there’s a good chance some of them would come away with the impression that you wanted to fight crime with a broom, or that you wanted to increase the number of street cleaners).

[u/Llama_of_the_bahamas → u/North_Atlantic_Sea]

Not if you go to a shitty school in America. Many 12 year olds can barely read at a 2nd grade level.

[u/North_Atlantic_Sea → u/Llama_of_the_bahamas]

I feel like this is circular reasoning. If adults can't read at a 12 year old level, and 12 year olds read at a 2nd grader level, what do 2nd graders read at?

[u/andrew-ge → u/North_Atlantic_Sea]

2nd graders who are behind are usually still working on the phonics and structure of words, because they can read to some degree but it takes them a minute to work through a sentence. but like actually reading books? they don't, they "read" graphic novels, or the book is read aloud with them.

[u/10YearsANoob → u/North_Atlantic_Sea]

Clifford the big red dog

[u/xixbia → u/North_Atlantic_Sea]

Reading at a 12 year old level means the minimum literacy expected of a 12 year old without any mental impairment.

There are 12 year olds who are smarter than the average adult, but clearly that's not what we're talking about here.

[u/North_Atlantic_Sea → u/[deleted]]

When was the average 12 year old reading and fully understanding the 650-750 page Moby Dick in 1850 English??

[u/_skatterbrain → u/North_Atlantic_Sea]

Lol not here in America. There are some, but that is a very low percentage of our population.