Just How Dumb Is He?

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times is an excellent reporter. So why, in a CNN interview this morning, did she say of Donald Trump, “For all the mocking of him, he’s not dumb, and he does understand that this is actually going to be what he gets judged on in the fall. How he handles this [the pandemic].” 
 

Ms. Haberman’s argument is that Trump is not dumb, since he understands that his re-election will turn largely on whether voters regard his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic as effective. But I disagree. Any slack-brained simpleton would understand that. Realizing this basic truth does not require a Ph.D. in Political Science.

But, more to the point, Maggie goes on to say, “So, he would much rather have it be a fight about the media. And that is what you saw yesterday.” By “yesterday,” she means Trump’s crude propaganda video about his terrific handling of the pandemic, and his snarling attacks on reporters who asked him pertinent questions.

I grant that Trump can be said to have better than average skills in media manipulation. He is quite good at distracting people from important information with his shiny objects. You could say he is, essentially, an Oval-Office-Occupying Flim-Flam Man. His only form of cleverness is his ability to divert and deceive. But ask him to handle a global pandemic and suddenly, He Ain’t Got Shit.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, made a similar point about Trump in an MSNBC interview. “News flash” Remnick said, “He’s not a competent executive.”

He went on to say that what is taking place in the White House briefing room “day after excruciating day” is Trump electioneering for November: “More than anything, Donald Trump is framing a re-election strategy.”

In other words, more aggressive manipulation of the media, while offering no effective response to the coronavirus crisis. When it comes to getting anything done, he’s just plain stupid. His succession of bankruptcies should have clued us in. Well, it did many of us, but not quite enough of us, apparently.

Mr. Remnick concluded by saying that Trump is “intolerant of reality.” In other words, whatever is happening, he doesn’t understand, but he does understand something about getting people to believe bullshit.

So, I’m going to agree with David Remnick, and disagree with Maggie Haberman. We do mock him because he is dumb and, in every area except media manipulation, he is dumb. But to be fair, we also mock him because he is misogynistic, bigoted, and corrupt.

Finally, at the risk of being dismissed as petty, let me raise one more mock-worthy point. What is that thing Trump seems to think is a smile? Doesn’t he know what a real smile looks like? Here’s what I’m talking about:

That face does not say to me, “Herein lies a happy, harmonious soul.” That’s because within Donald Trump’s innermost reaches there lies nothing but a black hole of neediness, a yearning for approval that has led to his reckless struggle to keep his re-election prospects up.

It is into that black hole that almost all of his potential intelligence is sucked.

For some excellent reporting on Trump’s pandemic failures, I refer you, once again, to Maggie Haberman and the wonderful piece she and her NY Times colleagues wrote that lays out his coronavirus-related blunders in vivid detail.

In the meantime, let’s not forget what smiles look like on the faces of people with full and genuinely happy hearts.

Bad Moon Rising

Wouldn’t it be cool if President Trump weren’t an idiot*? We face a health crisis that we should have seen coming many weeks ago, and, as yet, the White House has not taken adequate measures to confront it.

Of course, Trump hasn’t been oblivious to some of the effects of the coronavirus, at least where the stock market is concerned. Since he regards the Dow Industrial Average as his personal report card, he has thrashed about looking for a way to pull it back up from the 20% dive it has recently taken. Where Wall Street is concerned, he cares, he really cares.

But, as Hawaii’s Senator Mazie Hirono declared, our focus should be on the health of our citizens and on the economic pain to be faced by millions of soon-to-be displaced workers. Trump apparently doesn’t see these as key concerns. He has said nothing reassuring about the financial stress of ordinary Americans who don’t buy stocks. And, though we desperately need much more testing for the coronavirus, his Oval Office speech barely referred to testing at all. His promise last week that everyone who wants to be tested can be tested was empty, as was his claim that “millions” of test kits are now available. As of today the number of Americans tested stood at about 11,000.

South Korea, in the meantime, is testing approximately 10,000 people per day. Why are we so far behind the Koreans? Maybe it’s time for us to ask for some help from our friends in East Asia.

Trump, of course, would never accept help from a foreign country. His speech last night suggested that keeping foreigners out of the U.S. was an important factor in controlling the spread of COVID-19. It is not. He even at one point referred to the coronavirus as a “foreign” virus. This obviously does not reflect reality, but simply shows Trump’s deeply weird notion that non-American people are inherently a threat, an idea promoted by his deeply weird advisor, Stephen Miller. The presence of the creepily incompetent Stephen Miller in the White House is a reflection of Trump’s well-known preference for suck-ups over experts. So, we now face a life-threatening crisis with our leadership in the hands of people whose qualifications amount to nothing more than a willingness to suck up to Donald Trump, and a president who can neither think straight nor talk straight.

Hang on, America. It’s going to be a bumpy year.

                         And thank you, Senator Hirono

---

* To those who object to my rather harsh phrasing here, let me cite the words of former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who labeled Trump “a fucking moron.” I believe I have, by comparison, shown appropriate restraint.