Trump Is An Idiot
Let's not mince words
How many hours —and words—have been spent trying to describe Donald Trump? The adjectives and phrases pressed into service could fill entire thesauruses—endless variations of authoritarian, corrupt, racist, greedy, misogynistic. But I think there’s one truth about this man that doesn’t get nearly enough attention.
Donald Trump is not very smart. In fact, all signs point to him being an idiot.
Like many idiots, he surrounds himself with sycophants steeped in stupidity. And like many fools, he’s an unwitting tool for those who see, in his inanity, opportunity for their own malevolence. Meanwhile, the wealth and power he’s amassed mean that many of those who seek his favor—and have enough intelligence to know he’s an imbecile—pretend he’s not, out of fear or because of their greed and cynical ambition.
It’s a bit like The Emperor’s New Clothes, but the problem isn’t what he’s (not) wearing—it’s the emptiness between his ears.
An entire cottage industry has emerged to explain Trump’s rise to power. Clearly, the man had to have “street smarts” or be a “marketing genius” to convince millions of voters he had what it took to be president. According to these narratives, he understood America better than others—or at least understood how to manipulate the electorate. And by that logic, he must “know what he’s doing” and have at least some form of high intelligence. And then there are those who equate wealth with smarts. Never mind that his wealth was inherited, largely squandered (who bankrupts a casino?), and his resurrection was only due to the false mythologies created by “reality” television.
Don has always been about the con—a lifetime of escalating falsehoods. In the 1980s, he created the persona of a popular New York icon, which led to an image as a successful businessman. Now he wants it to appear that he has some genius plan to reimagine American power. But in each case, like so much in his life, it’s a fabrication. He’s smart enough to know you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you have to be a fool to think you can fool all of the people all of the time. Eventually, the truth becomes impossible to ignore. And the truth is that Trump has no idea what he’s doing because, in the end, he’s just not that bright.
It’s important not to underestimate those who seek to harm us; history makes clear that stupidity can unleash immeasurable pain and destruction. But it’s equally important not to overestimate our adversaries. Foolishness is a weakness—and like any weakness, it can be exploited. Recognizing that you are up against someone who has little understanding of what he’s doing should embolden the opposition.
None of this can minimize the dangers we face. And it is not that Trump is without ideas, and power. In fact, like a sloppy card player, he recklessly shows his hand. We know he is driven by petty grievances, a fragile ego, and a drastically inflated sense of his own intelligence. We know he wants to reinstall a power structure based on race, gender, and other privileges that echoes the darkness of our past. We know he is incurious and doesn’t read, that he’s incapable of understanding complex topics, and is a slave to his own unbounded desires.
To the extent that this collection of instincts adds up to a strategy, then it is useful to see it as such. But someone who would destroy the world economy for no reason is not an evil genius. Someone who delegates power to a cabinet of dunces is not playing 3D chess. And an aging man who natters aimlessly when speaking is not someone who, behind closed doors, is executing a master plan.
His stupidity was on full display throughout his first term—from the ridiculous (remember the Sharpie and the doctored hurricane map?) to the chilling, like suggesting people inject bleach to cure COVID. Now, with tariffs wrecking the global economy for no discernible reason, more people who should’ve known better are finally realizing this man has no idea what he’s doing.
Why are we blowing up global markets, wiping out small businesses, erasing retirement savings, and destabilizing the world order? Members of Trump’s administration can’t offer a consistent explanation. Some claim it’s about gaining leverage in negotiations; others insist it’s about boosting domestic manufacturing. Both justifications are absurd and bound not to materialize. They’re also mutually exclusive. If tariffs are just a bargaining chip, then in theory they’ll be dropped once other countries give in, which undermines any long-term incentive to build factories here.
But then again, no one can plan around Trump’s policies, because he shifts positions constantly and without reason. No one really trusts him because they know his mind is all over the place. It’s all chaos. No one with even basic reasoning skills would pursue something so rashly idiotic.
To quote Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger identified what’s now known as the Dunning–Kruger effect, a cognitive bias confirmed by numerous studies. It shows that people with low knowledge, skills, or competence tend to drastically overestimate their own abilities. Put more bluntly: Some people are too stupid to know they’re stupid. And that pretty much sums up the current regime.
Just think about that Signal group chat. Think about Elon Musk trying to explain how the government works. Think about Trump in almost any interview you’ve ever seen. To make matters even worse, the regime’s racism only amplifies its idiocy. They rail against DEI for promoting incompetence while they, themselves, demonstrate that only a bunch of entitled white guys could get away with being so stunningly stupid. And let’s not even start talking about the MAGA members of Congress.
It’s not polite to call people names, especially to say someone’s stupid. It’s kind of like calling someone a liar—and we all saw how long it took the press to finally call Trump’s lies what they were. We see the same issue here. For some reason, it’s easier for pundits to call Trump cruel, authoritarian, and corrupt than to call out his stupidity. Yet the evidence of that stupidity has been on full display for years. Now that his ignorance is actively destroying the economy, we might start to see cracks emerge.
But it shouldn’t have taken getting to this. His stupidity isn’t just undermining the economy; it’s destroying so many of the things that make this country great. Trump’s lack of mental fitness for the office isn’t just about his temperament or morality—it is about his basic inability to understand and function. By refusing to acknowledge a truth that should’ve been obvious to all, by failing to laugh off his own claims of genius, by stubbornly ignoring reality, we’ve found ourselves all at the mercy of a dangerously ignorant and incompetent man.
Note: If you are on Bluesky and wish to follow me, you can find me at: @elliotkirschner.bsky.social
Well, we have been warned for decades of the “dumbing down” of America. What does it say for the viability of democracy when a majority of idiots chose the dumbest one among us as our leader? Who knew that a once great Republic could be felled with so little thought and effort?
Hope you are well, Elliot. Yes, he is exhausting and dangerous because he is an idiot, worse, a slowly dementing (dementiaing? let's create a word) idiot who was lucky enough to be born into money and have people around him to tell him how best to squander it. Now he, but especially his handlers from P 2025, let's not forget, and all the other collabos, are causing everybody else worldwide to lose theirs. He needs to be removed and put away somewhere and his collabos dealt with accordingly.