# My hypothesis: Trump is smarter than I am-again. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 16, 2017, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011 "2017-10-16T02:34:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/61 "2017-10-17T17:33:20Z")
Trump is dumb but he also knows how to survive. It’s nothing to do with intelligence it’s just a sort of primal instinct. There’s a long line of people in his past who underestimated him, the Democrats among them. They should be very careful not to repeat that mistake. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2017, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/62 "2017-10-19T12:25:31Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Let me put it this way: > > Suppose the political circumstances in 2016 had been very different. Instead of a big anti-immigration wave on the GOP side, there was huge humanitarian sympathy to Syria. Instead of a fractured, outrage-driven media environment, it was more like it was in 1965. Instead of a 16-way primary, it was a one-on-one, policy-focused affair. > > In those circumstances, do you honestly imagine Trump running a very different campaign? I think the obvious answer is “no.” He did not shrewdly adapt himself to 2016. Instead, he has always been a bombastic, narcissistic, controversy-creator who doesn’t give a shit about policy but dislikes non-white people. He didn’t put on those clothes as a marketing ploy. That’s just who he his. This is so very true. Trump’s act is successful because we live in an age in which he can be successful with a race-baiting divide-and-conquer gambit. After a relatively long period in which our society embraced the ideal of diversity that coincided with a period of political and socioeconomic decline of the white majority, a plurality of people who felt threatened by these changes fought back at the ballot box and continue to do so. Trump’s personal instincts of nastiness coincide with the political instincts and some of the worst social impulses of the masses who support him. They’re a minority, but not an insignificant one. Trump obviously hates the actual job of being president, but he has grown to love the job of being a white social warrior. That, in his estimation, is probably the only way he can continue to function in his new role. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2017, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/63 "2017-10-24T08:50:29Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Tough call. They didn’t foresee the rise of political parties (which was a screw up on their part). Once political parties became entrenched, politicians began putting the interests of their party above the interests of the public. We have the means of controlling somebody like a President Trump. But the political party in power doesn’t want to use those powers. Oh they were fully aware of the dangers of political parties: “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” - John Adams “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.” - George Washington Although Jefferson seemed to support the concept: “Men are naturally divided into two parties, those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all power from them into the hands of the higher classes and those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise, depository of the public interests.’’ But I do think one of their failings perhaps was to account for parties in the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2017, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/64 "2017-10-24T21:52:21Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I’m dying to know what you think are the examples of his exemplary marketing skill. > > You do know he lost a popularity contest against Hillary Clinton, right? Not where it mattered. Also Trump understood the electoral college while Clinton, and apparently every Democrat on the planet, doesn’t quite understand it. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2017, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/65 "2017-10-24T23:07:16Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Also **Trump understood the electoral college** while Clinton, and apparently every Democrat on the planet, doesn’t quite understand it. A little though experiment for you. Let’s say that a deal is offered to you: –You’re hooked up to an electrocution-chair. Trump is brought in. If he can answer one sixth-grade level question about the Electoral College–correctly–you will be unhooked from the chair and handed a suitcase filled with one million dollars, cash. But if Trump _cannot_ correctly answer that one sixth-grade level question about the Electoral College, the switch will be flipped and you will fry. Since you’re quite confident that Trump “understood the electoral college,” you’ll definitely agree to the terms of this deal…right? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2017, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/66 "2017-10-24T23:23:13Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > A little though experiment for you. Let’s say that a deal is offered to you: > > –You’re hooked up to an electrocution-chair. Trump is brought in. If he can answer one sixth-grade level question about the Electoral College–correctly–you will be unhooked from the chair and handed a suitcase filled with one million dollars, cash. > > But if Trump _cannot_ correctly answer that one sixth-grade level question about the Electoral College, the switch will be flipped and you will fry. > > Since you’re quite confident that Trump “understood the electoral college,” you’ll definitely agree to the terms of this deal…right? I wouldn’t trust him to arrive at the correct location. Is he traveling with a minder? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/67 "2017-10-24T23:44:33Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I wouldn’t trust him to arrive at the correct location. Is he traveling with a minder? Doesn’t he always? ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/68 "2017-10-25T05:12:36Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Since you’re quite confident that Trump “understood the electoral college,” you’ll definitely agree to the terms of this deal…right? You do realize that you’re talking about the man who had the biggest electoral college victory since Reagan, right? ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/69 "2017-10-25T05:53:34Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > You do realize that you’re talking about the man who had the biggest electoral college victory since Reagan, right? I’m sure by now he’s up to “since Roosevelt” ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/70 "2017-10-25T12:28:03Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Anybody who thinks that trump is smarter than they are is probably right. +1 ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/71 "2017-10-25T21:08:42Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > You do realize that you’re talking about the man who had the biggest electoral college victory since Reagan, right? That was when I realized that he was too far gone from thw land of the sane. He might as well also say that he held the world record in 100m swimming and had recently gotten the cooking Nobel. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/72 "2017-10-25T22:42:05Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > A little though experiment for you. Let’s say that a deal is offered to you: > > –You’re hooked up to an electrocution-chair. Trump is brought in. If he can answer one sixth-grade level question about the Electoral College–correctly–you will be unhooked from the chair and handed a suitcase filled with one million dollars, cash. > > But if Trump _cannot_ correctly answer that one sixth-grade level question about the Electoral College, the switch will be flipped and you will fry. > > Since you’re quite confident that Trump “understood the electoral college,” you’ll definitely agree to the terms of this deal…right? If there’s any way we can flip that around, I want to be the first one strapped in. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/73 "2017-10-25T22:58:55Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > If there’s any way we can flip that around, I want to be the first one strapped in. What, take a bet that Trump would fail to get a sixth-grade level civics question right? You and 7.3 billion (minus one) other people. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011/74 "2017-10-26T21:31:33Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Not where it mattered. > > Also Trump understood the electoral college while Clinton, and apparently every Democrat on the planet, doesn’t quite understand it. > > Slee I doubt very much that Trump understood the Electoral College during the campaign, and his comments since indicate that he still doesn’t. A number of actions by his campaign in the period just before the election seem to have been geared towards him expecting to lose and being able to claim that he was cheated and should have won, thus really being a winner in his own mind. The fact that he managed to gain a majority of support in the states the Electoral College is biased towards is a lucky accident rather than a clever plan on Trump’s part. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hypothesis-trump-is-smarter-than-i-am-again/799011.md?page=3)