Where he was been superb

The BBC is also asking.

Question: How often does President Trump talk about IQ?

Answer: All the time.

When Mr Trump recently boasted that his IQ was higher than Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s, it fit a pattern.

In 2013, he tweeted that his IQ was “much higher” than Barack Obama and George W Bush.

He has also claimed a higher IQ than comedian Jon Stewart and British star of The Apprentice, Lord Sugar.

Despite this, Mr Trump has never revealed his own IQ. So can we work it out?

Sure. We can work it out by watching him in action. We can compare him to other people in the same line of work. We can compare him to Clinton for instance, to Corker, to Warren, to Schumer. We can compare how they think on their feet, what they say in response to questions, how they behave in public situations.

We can think back to the debates. The contrast was stark, and at the root of it was comparative intelligence. He can’t talk like an intelligent person; it’s that simple.

Who were the smartest presidents?
“I don’t recall ever coming across a list of presidents and their IQs,” says Dr Barbara A Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia.

“But you can easily find a list of presidents inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in their universities.”

Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa honours “the best and brightest liberal arts and sciences undergraduates from 286 top schools across the nation”.

Of the 44 presidents, 17 have been Phi Beta Kappa members. Bill Clinton, George H W Bush, and Jimmy Carter were the most recent.

Phi Beta Kappa counts? And Trump isn’t? Cool, then we know I’m smarter than Trump. Neener.

Professor Fred I Greenstein, professor of politics emeritus at Princeton University, lists six qualities that bear on presidential performance.

They are: public communication, organisational capacity, political skill, vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence.

There; that’s a much better framework to talk about it than “IQ.” Trump is abysmal on the first and last. The ones in between…I guess are debatable.

“Trump scores low on emotional intelligence, cognitive style, vision, and organisational capacity,” says Dr Perry.

“Where he was been superb, in order to win the presidency, is public communication and political skill.”

Mmmmmmmno. Political skill, ok, but public communication, no. He succeeded with that not because he’s intelligent at it but because there are so many people who like the other kind. I don’t think it can really be called intelligent public communication when he can appeal only to angry racists and fails utterly at trying to talk to the rest of the world.

3 Responses to “Where he was been superb”