Can he really be that dumb?

When Dan Quayle was Vice President (under Bush the Elder) he made a number of gaffes that seemed to indicate he was dumb as a post; the most memorable when he “corrected” a sixth grader for misspelling “potato” in a spelling be, saying it had an “e” on the end of it when of course it doesn’t. (He later said he was going off of cue cards the school provided him which included the misspelling.) Either way, he was pretty thoroughly mocked and the conventional wisdom was that he was behind the door when intellect was handed out.

I’ve also read articles that ranked the various president’s IQ’s (or at least attempted to, since in most cases the actual IQ test results aren’t available, if they exist at all), and most of the time Bush the Younger’s IQ is shown to be pretty low. Low, compared to other presidents, to be sure; they all rank significantly above 100 (average), but only a few get up to the rarified 135 or above. Interestingly, a fair number are 130 or above, generally accepted as the level required to get into Mensa. Dubya was listed as between 119 and 124.
In both those cases, I’ve either read about or spoken to people who have no apparent axe to grind, who have stated that, in actual fact and based on their personal experience, both Quayle and Bush were quite articulate and intelligent and were made out to be stupid by a hostile press. And while I still find their politics contrary to mine, I’m willing to accept the possibility that the two may not have actually been as stupid as I thought them to be. (Note that I still think it’s just a possibility; I saw nothing myself that would lead me to think they weren’t dummies.)

But now we come to Trump. I’ve wrestled with this, for the simple reason that this guy pulls so many boneheaded moves and makes such ridiculous claims that it honestly makes me wonder if it’s all just an act and he’s really pretty smart. How could anyone be as dumb as he appears to be, and be a billionaire? (I’m fairly confident that he’s nowhere near as wealthy as he claims to be, but most people are willing to accept his net worth as being somewhere north of a billion dollars.)

But I’m becoming convinced he’s just simply stupid. His lying is of course well known. Some may say he’s simply exaggerating, but I think it fits the definition of lie: to say something as factual with full knowledge that it is not. But I’m talking about something a little different than lying (which of course is reprehensible, especially for a president); to claim something is true when it is ridiculously easy to demonstrate it as false qualifies as stupid in my book. To claim that his inauguration was attended by “the most number of people in any inauguration in history,” when a child could see otherwise by comparing the two photographs side by side of Trump’s and Obama’s inaugural crowd, is simply stupid.

It was in today’s news that Trump presented to the graduating class of the US Coast Guard Academy, and complained about how badly he’s being treated. He said “No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.”
Seriously? I think that oh, maybe JFK or Lincoln might feel that getting shot in the head is a little worse than having the press point out your lies.

I have tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I simply don’t see evidence of intelligence. Misogyny, arrogance, narcissism and perfidy, yes. But intelligence? Nope.