Just HOW Fucking Stupid IS DJ Trump?

Why I Don’t Support Removal

Politics || History ||  Science ||  Spelling

Geography || Bad Boss || The Fourth Estate || Making Shit Up

[n.b.: this post will be modified over time || please check back soon for updates]

The full title of this post should include “and incompetent”.  But for time.  And space.  And what sanity remains.

Unlike most of my posts, I have not included item-by-item references, and instead give references to quotes and little else. Anything here is information readily available with a Google search. Hell, even Bing can verify anything I say here. Feel free, after reading this post, to either please answer the question above or ask one in the posting space at the bottom. Let’s get this discussion started.

And, believe it or not, though I would say Adam Schiff is doing a fine job in laying out the case for Trump’s post-impeachment removal — the ‘defense’ phase is underway as I write — I, Pearsonally, do not support his removal from the Oval Office.  My friends and associates may be surprised and even stunned by this, but I clearly state far below why that is the case.

At the top of this post, there are page jumps to sections desired. In all, this could be one of the longest blog posts in existence, but it is parred down substantially, with only fewer sources than usual used in the service of brevity.

Basically, the “stable genius” is dumb.  His own aides have called him “idiot”, “dope” and “moron”, while former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis stated he “had the understanding of ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader'”¹

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POLITICS

Yet to be written. Brilliance arrives soon.

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HISTORY

President* Big Brain did acknowledge “history and culture, so important”, although he was at a rage rally in Phoenix pushing undeniably racist ideas². By saying history is important, it’s curious of how little about it he actually knows, and despite having unlimited resources to not do so, he makes a pantload of mistakes about history. He could be forgiven for making these mistakes if he were 8 years old. As an adult, not one of these should pass as the utterance of anyone other than a member of the loony bin asylum.

Here’s a few brief nuggets:

— He thinks Canada burned down the first White House³.

— According to Trump, Andrew Jackson could have stopped the U.S. Civil War.  There is, of course, one small problem with this scenario: Jackson died before the Civil War began.

— He thinks emancipated slave Frederick Douglass is still alive.  At the start of Black History Month in 2017, Trump stated “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.” Now, to be fair — which I try to be — I have read the context in which he said this, and Trump’s words do not explicitly state that he thinks Frederick Douglass is still alive, but a lot of people took it that way, and the statement can be read that way, but I’ll give him a pass on this.

Except for one fact. When asked about this, the then Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, verified that, yes, Trump knows that Frederick Douglass was still alive when he said “I think he wants to highlight the contributions that he has made and I think through a lot of the actions and statements that he’s going to make, I think the contributions of Frederick Douglass will become more and more [recognized]”. Frederick Douglass died in in February, 1895.  Or, as DJ Trump would say, during Black History Month.

— He thinks inventor Thomas Edison is still alive and “needs protection”.

— Trump was unaware that the Republican Party is also known as the Party of Lincoln⁴.

— Trump thinks airports existed during the Revolutionary War. When I think of this face-palming show of COMPLETE ignorance (and here I am trying so hard to avoid ad hominen statements, but he leaves me no choice) and ill perspective rambling, I think of the following insult by Doctor Who: “You know, you are a classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain.”

During a Fourth of July speech, the Resident of the United States actually said the following about the America’s Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783) as described by Time:

Trump praised the Americans’ military efforts in the war against Great Britain. “Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory,” he said⁵.

Yeah, and Jesus rode dinosaurs across the Levant.

— He spread a completely fabricated story about  WWI General John Pershing, that he killed Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs blood.  The story is, of course, completely, entirely false⁶.

—

So the question we need to ask ourselves is: “Why is the Resident of the United States so ignorant about history, especially of his own country?”  One article gives great insight, from an interview in 2016 with journalist Marc Fisher⁷, here summarized by James Hohmnan⁸:

…he explained that he does not need to read extensively because he reaches the right decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already] had, plus the words ‘common sense,’ because I have a lot of common sense.” Trump told Marc he is skeptical of experts because they can’t see the forest through the trees and lack his good instincts.

Check these facts for yourself.  I am not making this shit up.  Truth is scarier than fiction.  Trump actually thinks he has ‘common sense’ and ‘good instincts’.  Dunning-Kruger in action.

Leonard Pitts Jr put it best, read the article here.

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SCIENCE

Here, I will attempt to stay away from base policy differences, such as whether it’s okay to increasingly pollute the environment (hint: it’s not, but he would apparently tend to disagree), and stick mostly with what is quantifiable.  But first, it is interesting to know where science rests in importance to this administration: In 2019, his proposed cuts to science advisory panels would “haunt the United States long after the current administration finishes”⁹ according to a MUST READ article online from the journal Nature.  Even before the election, Scientific American magazine posted a terrifying article about Trump’s basic ignorance or disregard of facts, stating “His statements show a disregard for science that is alarming in a candidate for high office”¹⁰.

Anthropogenic Climate Change
Making scientific mistakes when you are still years from running for president is understandable. For instance, in 2012, he let forth with a Tweet that illustrated in < 140 characters an understandable manifestation of a scientific fallacy made into an issue by right wing pundits with the sole purpose of spreading a misunderstanding of scientific processes and facts. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist had their emails hacked in 2009, climate deniers, led by political and corporate (read: non-scientific) organizations, twisted the nature and content of the emails into what is now called Climategate. Trump, being scientifically incompetent and a businessman who runs in circles with corporate interests, put forth what was understandably an honest Tweet, unfortunately giving an ever greater push to ideas which scientists had no conceivable manner to educate the public about. The twisted ideas were damage already done. No amount of education on the public can correct the horrible ideas put forth by the climate deniers. Along comes James Taylor, a former (read: FIRED) journalist who put forth a column in Forbes that only pissed petro on the flames of scientific ignorance, and Trumps Tweet on 1211.02 included a link to Taylor’s article. Taylor is the pres. of the Spark of Freedom, an activist group pushing a pro-petro agenda (they thankfully also promote nuclear, as do I, but not in the same manner as myself and other environmentalists).

So at that point, Trump’s denial of science can be explained.

Here’s the problem now, however. He is the single most powerful person on the planet (besides Vlad Putin, arguably), and should have unlimited resources to have only the best scientific resources at hand.  Yet he still argues against scientific facts regarding anthropogenic climate change (ACC=the proper term for what is happening to the planet from the continued infusion of poisonous petro pollution).  He continues to perpetuate falsehoods and has a hand at creating policies which could do lasting damage to our planet and all of human society.  He has called ACC a “hoax” and “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive”.  His proof of the hoax?  He was in Los Angeles in December “and it’s freezing”.

He has also perpetuated the type of sheer, unthinking ignorance typical of far too many politicians: “The weather has been so cold for so long that the global warming HOAXSTERS were forced to change the name to climate change to keep $ flow!”  No, DJ Trump, the name was promoted to make climate denial more palatable to a scientifically incompetent public¹¹.

More proof of his lack of knowledge on such matters:

During a campaign speech in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Trump criticized Obama for worrying too much about “the carbon footprint” of the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change—an issue that Trump proceeded to conflate with the hole in the ozone layer. “I want to use hair spray,” complained Trump. “They say, ‘Don’t use hair spray, it’s bad for the ozone.’ So I’m sitting in this concealed apartment, this concealed unit…It’s sealed, it’s beautiful. I don’t think anything gets out. And I’m not supposed to be using hair spray?”¹²

Yet he also wants to build a wall to protect one of the golf courses he owns in Ireland from rising sea waters cause by . . . wait for it . . . you guessed it . . .  Anthropogenic Climate Change¹².

I weep for the future.

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SPELLING

Okay, we all make mistakes. You would think that a man who describes himself as “smart, a true Stable Genius” who possesses “great and unmatched wisdom” thanks to his “very good brain”. We should take him seriously when he Tweeted (and this is not made up) “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure,it’s not your fault”.

So of course you would think the Wharton School graduate (where his professor William T. Kelley said “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had”¹⁴) would have perfect spelling and punctuation (he forgets periods and has failed punctuation often, similar to the one quoted above).

Yet here, from either a platform with spell-checking, or otherwise, such as material where he had nearly unlimited resources at his disposal, are just a few misspellings:

This could go on for a while. And that’s just some of the spelling errors. Forget grammar, mispronunciations, and his cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs spoken sentences which go off in outrageous (or is it “outrages”?) directions.

Enough for now.

 

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GEOGRAPHY

“As the World Turns” is more than a soap opera, it’s something which happens despite being outside of the megalomaniac-in-charge’s sphere of limited-world perception. A member of Trump’s National Security Council spoke to Politico on the condition of anonymity, relating (directly from the article):

“He wasn’t great with recognizing that the leader of a country might be 80 or 85 years old and isn’t going to be awake or in the right place at 10:30 or 11 p.m. their time,” said a former Trump NSC official. “When he wants to call someone, he wants to call someone. He’s more impulsive that way. He doesn’t think about what time it is or who it is,” added a person close to Trump.¹⁵

Specifically, the leader of Japan would be asleep when Trump wanted to call, and H R McMaster would have to work with the dimwit to set it up during a time more appropriate for forward diplomacy, despite Trumpian objections. James Carafano, a Trump State Department adviser verified separately that “[Trump] has a learning curve . .”. Imagine if that were said about your daughter or son in any subject. It was stated about me throughout my life in regards to math. It means I’m stupid at math and I fucking admit it. Trump has a learning curve about damn near everyfuckingthining.  And of course is unwilling to admit such.

His self-centered child-like lack of knowledge knows no bounds, not even geographic.  While studying a map of the Subcontinent, he called 2 of it’s northern border countries “nipple” and “button”.  Nepal and Bhutan are important diplomatic allies of India, whose PM was soon to meet Trump.  Such child’s play shows

“The underlying premise of protocol is respect for other people,” said Wendy Sherman, a former senior State Department official in the Clinton and Obama administrations. “When the president doesn’t follow protocol, it’s a sign of disrespect.”¹⁵

You would think the leader of the free world would know how to pronounce the names of other countries, but all diplomats are expected to know the basics of top government officials in allied countries, especially countries with nuclear weapons and sporting populations of over 1.2 billion people.  Yet Trump did not know PM Modi was estranged from his wife, and desired to be a matchmaker, trying to set him up (presumably with an American Christian).  That’s not how things work in India.  Real diplomacy.

We can forgive Trump when he mispronounces the name of a country.  In public remarks at the UN General Assembly in September of 2017, he did mispronounce the country of Namibia as Nambia¹⁷ twice¹⁸.  He was, however, praised for pronouncing one seemingly difficult countries’ name properly: “He did a very good job of saying Côte d’Ivoire,”¹⁵ one official said.

The PM of Italy visited the White House in July of 2018.  Giuseppe Conte never ran for the office he was holding, as this was a compromise placement based on the outcome of parties which won top votes in the election.  Yet Trump congratulated him on a “tremendous victory”.

Although it is subjective as to whether countries like Haiti, El Salvador and several African nations are “shithole countries”, the world’s diplomat in chief has stated such in Oval Office meetings, verified by several sources and not denied by DJ Trump himself, any of this rotating and obfuscating press secretaries or any of the President’s* staff or legal counsels.²⁰

WTF.

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Super Bowl Winners

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BOSS

As the scarily true and hilarious New Yorker cartoon which is this post’s header image points out, there is a seeming revolving door to his staff and the people he hires. Given that he puts himself in the category of a “stable genius”, President* “good brain” (his words, honestly) doesn’t make very good decisions on who to hire to fill his appointments, despite the fact that as Esquire points out “hiring is a core component of presidenting”. From his initial inaugural Cabinet appointments, only 2 are still in their positions, and he has had a bevy of assistants, Chiefs of Staff, WH Counsels, even Press Secretaries. More often than not, each person filling the posts in his administration get early praise, and are later called childish names or insulted during Trump’s rallies or from his Tweet Machine.

Here are just a few examples:
— Michael Cohen. Trump called his personal lawyer for a fucking decade: “a fraudster”, a “weak person”, “not a very smart person” and “bad lawyer”. One should wonder if this is an example of the blind leading the blind. At the very least, if any of those appellations were true, what does is say about Trump that he only figured all of this out after 10 years?
— Jerome “Jay” Powell.   Nominated by Trump as the Chair of the Federal Reserve, and confirmed by the Senate, the former Editor in Chief for the Georgetown Law Journal, Powell’s impressive resume includes working under President Bush I as the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, and with the Obama admin to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.  Trumpie, of course in his infinite wisdom, feels he knows the economy better than a bi-partisan with decades of experience, and since, according to the brain-in-chief, Powell did not lower interest rates enough, the tirades began, including sandbox-level name calling: “[Powell] has a horrendous lack of vision”, and Tweeted a question which should make everyone question Trump’s judgement: “….My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?”  Why don’t we, as a country, ask the question: “Who is a bigger enemy to America, Chairman Xi or Donald John Trump?”

— John Bolton.  Well-known as a “warhawk”, a term usually referring to the most extreme lovers of war and

— Steve Bannon.

Paul Manafort.

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— Mitt Romney.

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header image Ⓒ 2019 The New Yorker/UWOP

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