Read on Twitter
1/ A thread on how annoying it is to hear anyone (including liberals) consider Trump brilliant or a genius at marketing/branding and attribute that to his success. First, let’s get something out of the way. Trump is an incredibly stupid person.
2/ There’s overwhelming evidence to support his stupidity, but you can mostly see it just by watching him speak. He is consistenly incoherent, especially with ideas that are even remotely complex. In fact, most analysts find that he speaks at a 4th grade level.
3/ Even when he’s reading written remarks, you can tell that he not only doesn’t understand some of the words or phrases he’s using by the way he struggles to say them, he also tends to repeat them or go on tangents to try to cover for this lack of understanding.
4/ And yes I know he went to Yale, but, I promise you, that in and of itself isn’t a determination of anything. Case in point, this is a quote from a former official at The Frisch School in NJ on Jared Kushner “There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school..
5/ ... thought he would on the merits get into Harvard. His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted.“ Like dumb father, like dumb son in-law.
6/ So, maybe Trump’s not smart, but then some will argue he’s talented at branding? Again, fuck no. He’s a narcissist that inherited a business then proceeded to bankrupt it 4 times. He loves himself, so he brags a lot to the press and puts his name on things & of course...
7/ ... he has the money & white privilege to get away with any fuck ups. In fact, the Trump brand (even before he was elected) is mostly associated with corruption & grotesqueness. So then some will say, he won the presidency, that’s gotta mean something, right?
8/ This is a common fallacy I hear all the time. Success in this country doesn’t necessarily mean it’s well earned, especially for an already wealthy white man growing up here. His presidential win had less to do with his strategy or skill, and more to do with timing.
9/ A progressive culture that just elected its first black president, legalized gay marriage and had the first female presidential nominee, made a lot of white men angry and scared. They were quickly realizing that they were becoming the new minority.
10/ Since Trump IS that minority, he became the personification of this frightened demographic. He spoke to their fears, not out of any strategy, political know-how or elegant articulation, but bc he is the most vile depiction of them. And his cruelty was looked upon as strength.
11/ Sure he capitalized on that, but in mostly remedial ways. Bumper sticker slogans like build the wall, drain the swamp & lock her up worked, but not due to any saaviness on his part. In fact, he admits he didn’t even know what drain the swamp meant when he was first saying it.
12/ He’s an imbecile that fell ass backwards into the White House during a broken time in America. In fact, if it wasn’t for his idiocy, this election wouldn’t even be close, he’d be dominating bc the cowards in the GOP & Fox News have covered for his mistakes time & time again.
13/ But on top of everything, he’s so incredibly bad at the one thing he seems to do a lot of, lying, that he often hurts his own cause despite all the lifelines being thrown at him. So, no, he’s not charismatic. His brand is garbage. He’s not brilliant at anything.
14/ The only credit he deserves is that he happened to run for President at a time when the country was extremely divided, aided and abetted by a dysfunctional two-party system. He’s simply the excrement of a hacked and compromised democracy.
15/ So please quit with the bullshit that he’s some master showman that knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t. He is & will always be a fucking idiot. The only thing he’s ever been good at is being born a rich white male asshole, & in America, that sadly usually leads to success.
*correction, Trump went to Wharton. Not Yale. A million apologies to Yale.
