Trump and Weaponized Stupidity

There are not too many things which I would give Trump credit for as the President so far. Initially, for example, I thought that perhaps his public persona of an uninformed, insensitive, abrasive jerk might have been somewhat contrived, in an effort to appeal to a specific subset of the population. However, as all of his personality traits have persisted far beyond the election, and there is no apparent evidence to the contrary, I've long since concluded that Trump actually is an uninformed, insensitive, abrasive jerk. In such, he is singularly bad at being in a diplomatic leadership position; in fact he's quite possibly objectively the worst President in the entirety of the history of the country.

However, that being said, he has managed to do one thing which is somewhat impressive in context, even though I give no credit for purpose or planning in such. Trump has managed to weaponize stupidity, to remarkable effect. He has, in some sense, managed to take what for any other leader would be a likely crippling flaw, and turn it into a decided advantage.

So what do I mean by that? Well, firstly, Trump is unequivocally stupid; not only is he an imbecile in comparison to other former presidents who were vastly more qualified (and in particular the immediate predecessor in the office), but he's even rather slow in comparison to the general population. He barely has command of the English language, is seemingly unable to grasp basic policy topics, is primarily "informed" via cable news, cannot even pay attention through briefings, etc. By all accounts, and in every facet of his life, he's flat out dumb.

But he's also kinda turned that stupidity into a distinct advantage. For example, he's made himself effectively immune to criticism for either purposefully lying or being woefully ill-informed in public statements, via his inner circle implying that he is just prone to hyperbole. He's been able to brush off obvious lies (eg: one of the first, the number of people attending his inauguration) by doubling down on lying, and it seems that many people have mentally excused those lies with something akin to "that's just because Trump is ignorant". Ironically, he may well be ignorant; being stupid makes lying about things for which you are poorly informed easy and credible. Trump's administration has reach a level of dishonesty hither to unapproached by previous leadership in the US, yet his support is virtually unchanged.

Yet it's even more than that, and to me, where it gets more interesting. Trump is virtually unwatchable in his public speeches by anyone with even basic knowledge of grammar and/or proper sentence structure, not to mention awareness of current events (eg: I personally cannot watch his speeches; they are offensively stupid and mentally painful for someone like me). News reporters have remarked in fact-checking stories how miserable the assignment is, not only because of the sheer bulk of dishonest statements, but also because of how mentally arduous it is to parse through Trump's atrociously poor language structure. In effect, Trump is self-selecting the type of people who are even able to listen to his public addresses, and those people happen to overlap with his strongest supporters. This creates a striking disconnect between the people who listen to his speeches, and the analysis of his policy points presented in the general news media; it's not surprising that Trump demonizes the latter to great effect, given the divide.

Trump has, then, weaponized his own stupidity to both insulate himself from effective criticism, and ensure that the people giving him feedback on his own performance are by and large only his supporters. He has created his own insular bubble, and amplified the situation where the two ideological sides in the country "talk past each other", as a reflection of what he himself is doing. He has in this sense become a quintessential politician, entirely disconnected from any semblance of association with the disastrous consequences he is bringing upon the country.

(Closing side note: It would be an easy "excuse" to say that Trump is working as an agent of Russia, and all his ruinous divisiveness is purposeful and directed. I don't think that's accurate, though, at least pending additional evidence. The far simpler explanation is that Trump is just dumb, and dumb people are easily used as tools by more capable groups, such as Putin and his intelligence services. Trump is by essentially all accounts a tool, one which the GOP and Russia both thought they could use for their own ends, with the tool being none the wiser for it.)