You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump.

Many in and outside the US don’t realize Trump was a controversial idiot before he touched US politics, even before he heckled Obama about birtherism.
…But he was also a good snake oil salesman.
He could hype people to buy shit they really shouldn’t buy, like massively overpriced real estate sold from his private company to his public one. As unintelligent as he is, I feel like the opposition has ignored just how effective he is at spraying hype.
- It’s really extra infuriating that my professional frustrations with sales people being idiots is going to be the thing that blows up the world
  
  To badly quote the transformers paper...
  Attention is all you need.
  Apparently, it is :(
- Which also makes Musk more dangerous, because he is also a sleazy sales guy, involved in politics, zero empathy, willing to do anything, tiny fragile ego, but also a measure smarter.
  
  Eh…
  He wasn’t a New York finance player before politics. And he doesn’t have that “snake oil salesman charisma” that Trump has. But he talks like an asshole influencer, which is engaging, and he has a reputation and algorithm behind him now.
- You may also be discounting just how many helpers and "yes" men he had making his fantasies happen. It's always been about a smokescreen and pretending.

This is just a person who has a limited definition of human intelligence. If you're not smart in the same way I am, then you're just an idiot.
Trump might be lacking in the traditional academic understanding of intellect, however I think it's hard to deny that he's an extremely potent bullshitter. Which in my opinion takes a certain level of intellect.
If we keep trying to frame Trump as a complete buffoon it gives him an edge. It's about time we stop underestimating his ability to manipulate not just the general public, but the media apparatus and capital holders as well.
Plus, if he's actually an idiot...what does that make the people he's beating at the polls? Politics is a popularity contest, it's not a science symposium.
- He is fooling the part of the population that puts hate over their own self interest and have a 24/7 coordinated media campaign to stoke that anger and drive them to the polls. He didn't win on his own, he just happens to be stupid enough for Republican voters to feel they can relate to while he sells them a shit sandwich that the peolle around him came up with.
  Being a snake oil saleman doesn't require intelligence. It requires being stupid enough to buy your own hype.
  
  He is fooling the part of the population that puts hate over their own self interest and have a 24/7 coordinated media campaign to stoke that anger and drive them to the polls.
  And that can be said of any conservative president since Nixon. It still takes some sort of competency to control that voting block with an iron grip.
  Being a snake oil saleman doesn't require intelligence
  I respectfully disagree.
- if he's actually an idiot...what does that make the people he's beating at the polls?
  It means 95% of humans are idiots and we already knew that
- I wonder how much of that is because of his support team making his messaging more effective.
  Can't deny though that he was a host of a comparatively dumb TV show for many years. He's probably reiterating the same formula with minor corrections.
  And while doing that he could afford saying he walked on teen models and hanged out with Epstein without his personal brand being killed right after that. That speaks a lot.
- Interesting. You're not smart the same way I am and are in fact an idiot.
  
  So honored to be speaking to the head of Mensa...... So glad you could take a minute of your busy schedule shit posting to drop by!

This is something I have often pondered and moreso in the last deccade. Which is worse ; evil or stupid. Every time I come to stupid is worse because evil does not want to fuck themselves over as well so there is somewhat of a limit to what they will do.
- Carlo Cipolla knew the answer to your question. https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Basic_Laws_of_Human_Stupidity
- And "good" vs "evil" is relative anyway. Even someone like Hitler would have believed he was doing something for the better good, even if it was a completed twisted view. For me, what is important is internal self-consistency. Do you have a reasoned position and hold on to it? Then you are probably not stupid.

The dichotomy here is that he is actually smart about exploiting a sort of populist charisma that makes idiots feel empowered by him. Bill Clinton had it as well. Manipulating people in a solid range to just love you. That one thing is his super power, and once he's leveraged it, he's invincible to accountability because he just keeps moving, manipulating more people to survive and thrive despite a literal wake of destruction behind him.

But Xelon is really, really trying to take that top spot.

he's stupid, yes. but the buyers of the brand of stupid he's been selling the last decade+, maga voters especially--are far, far dumber. they can't afford to be that fucking stupid, but lord diaper can.