Trump has the IQ of an inbred tanning bed, says Gary Cohn
Despite the derogatory words of his subordinates and critics, Trump is not actually stupid at all. He’s just ignorant. I have to admit that I never thought such a completely ignorant person could possibly win the American Presidency. Jerry Ford was neither rocket scientist nor policy wonk, but he knew how government functioned, and he knew enough to realize what he didn’t know, allowing him to hire competent subordinates. Trump knows nothing of government, nor much of anything else, and that is compounded by his narcissism, which prevents him from admitting what he doesn’t know. The result is that, although he is not mentally slow, he’s basically incapable of learning. We assume, unfairly, that an inability to learn is always a sign of a feeble mind, so his critics deride his intellect.
Wrong. There are many factors that might cause an inability to learn, and feeble-mindedness is only one of them. There’s attention deficit order, for example, or memory loss caused by brain trauma, and some forms of mental illness.
Like pathological narcissism.
He is the President. He didn’t get to the White House by being dumb. He pulled off something nobody dreamed possible. Whatever negative things one thinks about Trump, there is no questioning that he is one of most canny self-promoters and self-marketers in history. He makes Madonna seem like an amateur.
It is possible to blame some of his success on racism, sexism and the utter failure of the American school system, but the fact of the matter is that there have always been racists, sexists and uneducated people, but nobody was ever able to weaponize them as effectively as Trump. Perhaps life dealt him the lemons of ignorance, but he has actually turned his ignorance into the lemonade of exploitation. He has made ignorance an asset rather than a liability by using it to rev up his core audience. When you get right down to it, that is brilliant. In his own unusual way, he really is a genius.
Running for President while knowing absolutely nothing necessary to do the job was a bold strategy, Cotton, but it really did pay off for him!
I think pretty much everything has been said except maybe one thing. If “stupid” is a measure relative to the rest of the population, then Trump isn’t stupid. He’s just exposed the intelligence level of about 30-40% of the US population.
Trump was able to persevere through negative stories and negative press coverage not only because he has no shame (he’s unfortunately not unique in that regard) but because he was almost entirely self funded. Story after story that would send campaign contributors and bundlers running for the hills, was just another opportunity for Trump to run against the negative media. Other campaigns would have quickly run out of money and have had to be suspended. Ironically, Trump didn’t even spend that much of his own money because he got so much free press.
The Supreme Court ruled over 40 years ago that the government can restrict campaign contributions (to avoid corruption or the appearance thereof) but could not restrict campaign expenditures or the ability of a candidate to spend as much of their own money as they pleased. As a result we have had over 4 decades of attempts to reform campaign financing being subverted because there are just too many people who desire to use too much money to affect political outcomes. An unintended side effect is that the public has less information, not more, about who is behind the money. I say scrap it all and start over. Allow unlimited contributions to political candidates but require names and amounts be published as soon as the contribution is made. Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos can offer multi-million dollar contributions but the candidate will have to decide whether or not to accept it. Still allowing unlimited open contributions should limit the amount of hidden or dark money in our politics. It might make another Trump like campaign less likely because a handful of rich people can come together to finance a self-financed candidates opponent.
I’d say he is very talented at self promotion. But talent does not equal intelligence.
But intelligence is not the only form of genius. The OED defines “genius” as “a person who powerfully influences for good or evil the character, conduct, or fortunes of another.” That surely sounds like Trump to me.
This insult to inbred tanning beds will not stand!
There has already been a formal protest issued by the powerful WVITBA. (The West Virginia Inbred Tanning Bed Association.)
I think it is obvious that Trump has great skills as a salesman, a con man, a demagogue, and above all, as Scoopy says, a self-promoter. Of course, once his ignorance and constant lies are exposed under the national and international scrutiny that comes with being the US President, he comes across as a dolt. But would you want to compete with him in a Glengarry Glen Ross kind of situation?
I honestly think that he’s functionally illiterate. That doesn’t mean he can’t type tweets (hell…you could train a monkey to do that!), but it means that he can’t read and digest complex documents. Something that I would think would be a job requirement for the President of the United States.
He’s an idiot. He does foolish and ridiculous things constantly. That’s not ignorant, that’s just stupid.
He became president not because he’s smart, but because he had enough money to just keep going while the GOP fucked their own primary hard and fast without lube chasing the Jeb Bush dream. Once he won the nom, he won the big chair because the dems ran the one person who could lose to such an idiot. Only her overall hatred in the population combined with her extreme arrogance could have led to the results we wound up with.
All he had to do was ride the wave of xenophobic hysteria and hatred of the status quo to a non-majority win the vast majority of the country immediately met with hatred and horror.
This took no genius from him. Even the most basic logical ability would have dodged every bullet currently about to land on him, but he was too fucking stupid to even preserve his own hide.
Yes, I think that Mr Dark has nailed it: Trump really just is stupid. No need to over-analize it. And Americans are too polite to want to call anyone ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ even when they demonstrably are.
And why is Trump successful despite being a moron? Because he has no shame. Gary Hart would be an ex-President today if he had no shame. Same with Geirge Romney, and others who have let negative press stories stall their momentum and force them out of the race. No one knew, until Trump, that if you just stick your fingers in your ears and don’t listen to any of the press’s negative vibe, nothing bad will actually happen to you. You can keep running for President without impediment (especially if you’re a celebrity). Hell, you can even stand up in public and say you admire the Mafia and think they are very efficient, which Trump has done several times. As long as you can’t be shamed by having your comments thrown back at you, you are completely impervious to criticism. And your appeal to equally stupid voters will be limitless.