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Comment by mlevental | Hacker News Reader

this is a crock. it was a crock when it was written and it's still a crock now. the idea that someone can for 8 years in the spotlight disguise themselves so much so that appear wholly opposite is ludicrous. it takes months for professional actors to produce 90 minutes of performance - the guy was on camera for literally weeks. he's not "smarter than you" this kind of revisionist nonsense is politically motivated - people were saying the same exact thing about Trump before he took office and we are now all very sure it's not the case.

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It wouldn't be that big of an act. Even smart people can be naturally inarticulate. And a big part of the reason he was perceived as being dumb wasn't even him saying stupid things, it was just him saying things in a way that was stereotypically associated with lack of intelligence.

He said plenty of seemingly stupid things too, but in hindsight, they have been more deliberately dishonest then stupid.

Possibly, very possibly you're wrong. You're operating on superficial impression and comparing that to people who know him?

Part of the reason he is blamed for stupid decisions is that he never sloughed off responsibility. (Unlike some certain other recent presidents and president wanna-bes)

Do you think you could become president of the US if you just wanted to? Probably not. Trump is smart. I would be in literal, not figurative, disbelief if any president in the history of modern US weren't. The competition for that position is very sharp and only the best make it. There are many problems with Trump, but IQ isn't one of them. Hitler wasn't dumb either. Being a good demagogue is hard. The strategy and skillset is somewhat different to ordinary politics, but don't mistake that for ease. While we're at it: Youtubers and fashion bloggers aren't dumb either.

Trump is narcissistic, insecure, mean, ignorant and has no honor, but dumb he ain't. Underestimating the guy is unwise.

Hitler put himself into a situation where the best option, in his opinion, was to blow his own brains out. So he's not winning any awards for being brilliant. Perhaps being a good demagogue has more to do with luck and circumstance than it does with skill and intelligence? Maybe that's why it's not so common?

Intelligence means achieving your goals on purpose. It is something that can be taught and reproduced in others. You can't just wait for entropy to spontaneously arrange for your success and claim to be a genius, even if it works the one time you try it.

Your definition of intelligence is quite unorthodox and so is idea that brilliance somehow excludes suicide or risk taking or over confidence - all things that can make you loose big time.

Hitler ability to speak was not luck. It was work, skill and talent. And world did not just spontaneously arranged itself for them to get power, Hitler took a lot of calculated deeps to make it so, it is not like he was only one trying to get that power. Saying that it was nothing but luck is ahistorical. Not that it makes him any less immoral.

Hitler was perhaps one of the stupidest people to ever grace the history books, and managed to wipe out vast numbers of his own people, including himself, in a completely pointless war of his own making, wherein he managed to make enemies of three of the most powerful entities in the world at that time.

The alternative was a Germany as vassal state under crippling WWI reparations and a failing economy. The war was not "pointless" even if it ultimately failed in its goals.

I'm not defending his ideology, but its important to understand the rational reasons behind his decisions if we want to prevent another global catastrophe. Even without Hitler its still likely Germany would have instigated fighting at some point.

so, that's one way of looking at it, it's the conventional view, and probably more correct, but...

Another way of looking at it is that the fighting resulted because France and the allies didn't crack down on Germany when they failed to meet the terms of their surrender.

Personally, I feel that your view (and the conventional view) is more correct, but it's interesting to think about the converse. I mean, we've still got troops in Germany today, right? What if that's the key? It wasn't about economically rebuilding them, but what if, instead the war didn't flare up again simply because the occupation never ended?

It was war for territory, "living space" and ultimately world domination. Effectively, it was imperial project. The other powers were not about to give power up for free. Those are quite clear points.

Hitler did not valued life and got used to violence in WWI. That has nothing to do with intelligence either. Both stupid and smart people can grow to not value life and be ruthless and confident and power hungry and taking too much risk.

I didn't provide a definition of intelligence, I provided a description of it. The ability to win at dice is not intelligence. That's not a controversial claim.

>Hitler ability to speak was not luck.

Nor was it particularly intelligent. Plenty of people speak well. He just had a podium in front of the right people. People who wanted to hear stupid ideas delivered with emotion. If you stood him in front of his enemies, he would be insulted and denigrated, because he wasn't a good speaker so much as he was good at finding an approving audience.

You're not a great runner if you happen to look around and find yourself a race where you win by moving slowest. If that brings you rewards, you're lucky. Not skilled. Hitler was an opportunist, and you can't learn to succeed in life by following his example. Because luck can't be taught.

What you wrote is not true. Hitler was very good at reading audience, adjusting speech to them and seeing how they react. His work and actions had impact on that movement sucess.

I would not learn from Hitler, because his idea of sucess involves imperialistic war and multiple genocides. And his ideology praised ruthlessness as a virtue. Has nothing to do with whether he had speeking skill or not, whether he could paint well or not.

Just because he was bad guy does not mean we have to go all emotional and pretend he had IQ 75. That just allowing emotions to win over what and why happened.

I'm not saying he was stupid, I'm saying he wasn't particularly intelligent. I.e., not an archetypical example of an intelligent person.

Some of Trump's advisers are not to be underestimated. Their brilliance is in using Trump -- who has off the charts emotional intelligence -- as a president. They frame the issues, he taunts and captivates the press.

I would point to the incredible power struggle in the white house as a product of the undue behind-the-scenes influence.

Good point. I suspect Trump doesn't care about most issues, so GOP and administration gets free reign on those. I suspect that's part of why he hasn't been impeached and part of the benefits package of working for the administration.

>Some of Trump's advisers are not to be underestimated. Their brilliance is in using Trump -- who has off the charts emotional intelligence -- as a president. They frame the issues, he taunts and captivates the press.

I like that you are one of the few people who seem to pick that up. The setup is almost the same for Russian political establishment, and as you see it worked with devastating efficiency.

> but dumb he ain't

He puts himself in trouble all the time via tweets. That's pretty dumb in my book.

> Underestimating the guy is unwise

I agree with that. Underestimating someone with as little honor and ethics as Trump is dangerous.

He mostly gets himself in trouble with the media, and most people hate the media. Trump won because he got himself in trouble with the establishment all the time. Not sure how that’s dumb.

> Do you think you could become president of the US if you just wanted to? Probably not. Trump is smart.

I think you mean rich—from below market returns on inherited wealth—and well-connected (as a result of the former) and a celebrity (largely also a result of the first item, combined with America’s idolization of wealth, both recently and more particularly in the 1980s when he established his celebrity status.)

>Do you think you could become president of the US if you just wanted to? Probably not. Trump is smart.

I think you're attributing to intelligence what can easily be explained by money. Give me a few billion and a decade to turn my name into a brand then it will be a fair comparison.

Leaders are between 1 and 2 standard deviation on top of the average. It's been studied already.

I'm sure at one time he was of at least above average IQ, after all the average person accomplishes very little, wealthy parents or not. But I wouldn't call him (now at least) smart either as to me that implies some kind of skill or at least attempt at abstract reasoning. He does have a talent for tapping into this great unconscious id that I think makes him like an actor or artist in some ways.

> Do you think you could become president of the US if you just wanted to? Probably not.

It is more a question of whether the right people want you to.

> people were saying the same exact thing about Trump before he took office and we are now all very sure it's not the case.

Here is one guy who was "saying the same exact thing about Trump before he took office" and is still very sure it is the case: http://blog.dilbert.com/2018/01/18/fake-news-awards-persuasi...

Some people probably can, but then in addition to being intelligent he’d have to be an incredibly talented and disciplined actor.

Unlikely.

You don’t become president of the United States by accident.

I wonder if he had some kind of political connections that could have helped?

No, it is not an accident. It is mostly a matter of money applied with some precision. Brand recognition helps.

So who was responsible for applying the precision and maintaining brand value?

The several companies Trump spent large sums of money on who do that as their job?

> people were saying the same exact thing about Trump before he took office and we are now all very sure it's not the case

Don't be so sure. First, he outsmarted both political parties to become the most powerful man in the world. And in his first year as president, he's been far more effective at getting things done than most. The fact that some people dislike the things he's getting done doesn't take anything away from that.

> And in his first year as president, he's been far more effective at getting things done than most.

Citation (other than him or his spokespersons) needed.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trumps-top-9-accomplishmen...

http://blog.dilbert.com/2017/11/13/president-trumps-2017-rep...

Those are BS accomplishments and their twisting of logic is beyond ludicrous.

> The fact that some people dislike the things he's getting done doesn't take anything away from that.

What’s BS about them?

You don't get to claim judicial appointments as one of your accomplishments when the only reason they are there is because another member of your party, who happened to be the Senate Majority Leader, basically said "You Shall Not Pass!" to all the previous President's nominees.

As for "government waste", arguably he's wasting far, far, far more with his golf trips than any that he "saved". And many of those "savings" came at the expense of social programs that, without, will likely end up costing us more.

The travel ban is a giant example of his racism that I guess you could put on his accomplishments, if only to show how brazenly racist he would be in office. Even then, it's initial rollout was a complete and utter disaster, and it was prevented by injunction several times.

Trump has NOT defeated ISIS. Not even close.

Throwing gasoline on an already fiery situation in the Middle East is NOT an accomplishment.

Dooming the US to irrelevance by being the one first world nation to not participate in the Paris Climate Accords, thus ceding our position as leader of the world, is also NOT an accomplishment.

If the recent book is to be believed at all, we now know that the person that Trump outsmarted most of all was himself. He never intended to actually win.

Or, perhaps Putin is the wisest leader of all?

Trump's whole persona is about winning brashly and bigly. It's ludicrous to think that he entered a race he didn't intend to win.

> If the recent book is to be believed at all

It isn't to be believed, literally at all.

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/367902-dont-believe-m...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/03/mi...

"by Sebastian Gorka"

Yeah, no thanks. I'll believe 100% of the book before I believe 0.01% of what Gorka spouts.

Well that’s silly, but you also chose to ignore the other link.

Just because he didn't expect to win doesn't mean that his victory was a fluke. You can't accidentally get yourself elected as President.

> he's been far more effective at getting things done than most.

You say this as we're on the brink of a government shutdown (a government controlled entirely by the President's party), which has been exacerbated by the President. The Senate Majority Leader (again, of the President's own party) said just yesterday the President is the primary impediment to keeping the government open, because no one knows what exactly he will sign, since he changes his mind by the hour.

>a government controlled entirely by the President's party

Not quite. They cannot easily get by a filibuster.

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