The “stable genius” thread

The Untruth Social thread focuses on the dishonesty of Trump and his administration, and the Trump and mental illness thread covers his psychopathology, but I think we also need a thread focusing on his stupidity.

No better place to start than with the 2018 Twitter quote that inspired the OP title:

Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star, to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!

That quote is its own best refutation, because no one who was truly a stable genius would be stupid enough to say that he was “a very stable genius” and “like, really smart.” Trump is neither, and this thread will soon be full of examples proving it.

66 thoughts on “The “stable genius” thread

  1. Trump in Davos, Switzerland: “Without us you’d all be speaking German”. This would be a good joke from someone with a proven sense of humour. But I don’t think he’s joking.

  2. The Moron in Chief:

    They’re not there for us on Iceland. That I can tell you. Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So Iceland has already cost us a lot of money.

  3. Trump claims China doesn’t use windmills and only sells them to stupid people. He also said in his speech that China has no windfarms.

    Googling these claims instantly disproved both, and reveals China is the biggest user of windpower in the world and has the biggest wind farms in the world, and is constantly expanding it’s wind power capacity.

  4. Rumraket:

    Googling these claims instantly disproved both, and reveals China is the biggest user of windpower in the world and has the biggest wind farms in the world, and is constantly expanding it’s wind power capacity.

    I wonder if anyone has tried to teach Trump how to use Google. Not that he’d be inclined to use it or have the ability to interpret the results. He can sort of use social media, but I’m not sure his tech abilities extend beyond that.

    Even there he has trouble, as revealed when he accidentally posted this on Truth Social when it was intended to be a DM to Pam Bondi:

    Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT

    There’s also this famous comment:

    They have a phone app so that people can come into our country. These are smart immigrants, I guess, because most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is. But they do. These are very intelligent immigrants.

  5. Scott Bessent a couple of days ago, explaining the administration’s plan to prevent institutional investors from buying up homes and driving up house prices:

    We are going to give guidance at some point to see what is a mom and pop. Someone, maybe your parents for their retirement, have bought 5, 10, 12 homes. So we don’t want to push the mom and pops out, we just want to push everyone else out.

    The “mom and pops”, with their 12 homes? Jesus Christ. Bessent and Lutnick are the Dumb and Dumber of the Trump administration’s economic team.

  6. The “Readtheartofthedeal” bros are out in force over Greenland. “Shoot high, aim low. Classic Donald, been watching this for 30 years”. Basically, assuming it goes through, swapping rent-free indefinite leasehold for freehold. They can piss in the snow and say “it’s ours”. Making no practical difference, but straining international relations and making yourself look, to non-cultists, weak, capricious and a bit mad.

    Result.

  7. You could see how embarrassed Trump was when Kaitlan Collins asked him about the deal (which in another interview he referred to as “a concept of a deal”, lol).

    Collins:

    Does it still include the United States having ownership of Greenland like you’ve said you wanted?

    Trump:

    Uh… [long, awkward pause with a funny look on his face] It’s a long-term deal. It’s the ultimate long-term deal. And I think it puts everybody in a really good position.

    Translation: Trump TACOed. Again. He didn’t get Greenland. In fact, Mark Rutte said the topic didn’t even come up in their discussion.

    I hope everyone inside and outside the US is paying attention. The way to deal with a bully like Trump is not to give in to him.

  8. The Greenland sycophancy is crazy. I see a lot of apologists on Twitter (you can hardly not), and they are all trying to frame this as a ‘Typical Trump hardball’ victory. If his strategy is always to make a high demand then go low, and you know it, the obvious approach will be always to wait for the low. This is hardly Prisoner’s Dilemma territory. (Speaking of which, tangentially, I’m off to see Dawkins on his Selfish Gene 50th anniversary tour).

  9. Maria Bartiromo:

    Does this ultimately mean that the US ultimately will acquire Greenland?

    Trump:

    Well, I don’t know if I could say that. But it could be. I mean it’s possible. Anything’s possible.

    Compare that to what Trump was saying before Davos:

    Because when we own it, we defend it. You don’t defend leases in the same way. We have to own it.

    And:

    Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document that you can have a base.

    And:

    Psychologically important for me. Now, maybe another president would feel differently, but so far I’ve been right about everything.

    And:

    We’re not going to allow Russia or China to occupy Greenland, and that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t own it.

    Trump’s trip to Davos was a complete failure, and now, by his own logic, we don’t have what’s “psychologically needed for success” and Russia or China will occupy Greenland. The rest of us are fortunate that he failed, but man, this must be a huge blow to his inflated self-image.

    Trump’s fiasco reminded me of something Bill said in the tariff thread:

    I negotiated complex deals for many years of my career. Trump is good or probably better than any politician in history due to many factors including his energy, understanding what motivates the others side, his understanding of how to generate leverage and his creativity.

    Lol. The Master Negotiator.

  10. Trump, in his Davos speech:

    I have tremendous respect for both the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark. Tremendous respect. But every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory…

    Um, no. The entire frikkin’ point of NATO is that the allies shouldn’t have to defend themselves on their own. An attack on one is an attack on all.

    …and the fact is, no nation or group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States.

    That’s funny. I’ve heard there is a group of nations called NATO, of which the United States is a member, that is able to do exactly that. Right now, NATO is obligated to defend Greenland. If the US acquires Greenland, NATO will be obligated to defend Greenland. It’s obviously far better to have NATO defending Greenland than to have NATO defending Greenland. Trump is a strategic genius.

  11. JD Vance isn’t as stupid as Trump, but he does say some pretty stupid things. Here’s the latest:

    The Democrats talk a lot about the affordability crisis in the United States of America. And yes, there is an affordability crisis: one created by Joe Biden’s policies. You don’t turn the Titanic around overnight. It takes time to fix what was broken.

    Lol. An inadvertently apt analogy. Trump has hit the iceberg, and now it’s time to rearrange the deck chairs. It’s hard to turn around a sinking ship.

  12. The Dipshit in Chief:

    Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???

  13. Can YOU tell which one has the PhD in Economics from Oxford and which one was convicted on 34 felony counts for a hush money scheme?

    ETA: Meanwhile, Trump wrote this on Truth Social:

    I had a very productive telephone conversation with President Claudia Sheinbaum, of Mexico… Mexico has a wonderful and highly intelligent Leader — They should be very happy about that!

    Yes, Donald. Mexicans should be very happy about that. They have an intelligent, articulate, educated leader with an engineering PhD as their president. Canadians have an intelligent, articulate, educated leader with an economics PhD as their prime minister.

    We have you, a man who struggles to form coherent sentences or maintain a train of thought, and who has probably never read a book in his entire life, including the ones ghostwritten for him.

    ETA2: Worth reposting:

    Trump Struggled to Discuss His Favorite Authors in 1987 Televised Interview

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