The “stable genius” thread

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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. In the “Trump and mental illness” thread, I mentioned how Grandpa, right in the middle of his meeting with oil executives, got up and wandered over to the window to gaze at the site of his new ballroom. He said “Wow. What a view. This is the door to the ballroom.” As he was coming back, he said “Unusual time to look, but I figured we might as well do it.”

    Then there was the moment that Marco Rubio slipped him a private note, and instead of reading it first, Grandpa just blurted out “Marco just gave me a note. ‘Go back to Chevron.They want to discuss something.'” The man is clueless.

    Trump reads Marco Rubio’s private note out loud — Rubio can’t hide his shock

  2. One of his many irritating qualities is his limited vocabulary. “Treated us very poorly”, “horrible, terrible, nasty” on rotation, “no-one’s ever seen anything like this” (no-one’s ever seen anything like this amount of hyperbole…).

    I don’t think he’s stupid per se, but he sure says a lot of stupid things.

  3. Allan Miller,

    I don’t think he’s stupid per se, but he sure says a lot of stupid things.

    Hi Allan
    I agree with you here as he is totally unfiltered and I cringe at some of the things he says.

  5. Allan:

    I don’t think he’s stupid per se, but he sure says a lot of stupid things.

    At some point “he says a lot of stupid things” crosses over into “he’s a stupid person”, but your threshold might be higher than mine.

    I am genuinely interested in counterexamples, though. He’s good at grifting, and he managed to get elected twice, and he convinces a large segment of the population that his lies are the truth, so I’ve considered those as possible signs of intelligence.

    However, the grifts aren’t clever, the lying isn’t done skillfully, and his electoral success doesn’t appear to be due to any special insight he has into the psyches of the voters. Consider his tone deafness in regard to the affordability issue, for instance.

    Plenty of times I have heard a politician I dislike say something that I thought was quite insightful, but I honestly can’t think of a case where Trump has done that. But if anyone knows of any, I’m definitely interested in hearing about it.

  6. keiths,

    At some point “he says a lot of stupid things” crosses over into “he’s a stupid person”, but your threshold might be higher than mine.

    Well, seizing the reins of power so comprehensively takes a certain amount of guile. Or at least, I would have no idea how to do it, and I don’t think I’m dumb. It helps that his sycophants fawn and allies quake, due to the power vested by America’s wealth and military might. So maybe he’s just bull-in-china-shopped his way to the position.

    A distinction without a difference, though, given the sheer volume of stupid utterances.

  7. keiths:

    Plenty of times I have heard a politician I dislike say something that I thought was quite insightful, but I honestly can’t think of a case where Trump has done that. But if anyone knows of any, I’m definitely interested in hearing about it.

    How about “I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and I wouldn’t lose a single vote”? He does seem to have a lot of insight about how cult members think.

  8. Allan Miller:
    keiths,

    Well, seizing the reins of power so comprehensively takes a certain amount of guile. Or at least, I would have no idea how to do it, and I don’t think I’m dumb.

    Gary Kasperov explained this. He pointed out that almost all of how US government and governing works, rests on history, tradition, convention, and tacit agreement about how things should be done. And therefore Trump can grab power no previous President would have dreamed of grabbing. Before Trump, politicians tended to ask themselves what would be the best way to do things while keeping political differences polite and honoring the loyal opposition. Trump, now, governs by the principle of “what are you gonna do about it”. Just as most people obey the law because the laws are there for a reason, outlaws won’t obey any law they can get away with breaking. More than not, they succeed. Police departments have many thousands of unsolved cases.

    Very clearly, Trump learned an important lesson during his first term – that if you hire experienced, intelligent people, they will often stop you from doing totally irresponsible and dangerous things. This time around, Trump hasn’t even considered appointing anyone like that. It’s yes-men only. He’ll spend the next 3 years working, every day, to eliminate competence, democrats, and judges. He’s well aware that his hand-picked judges ruled that he’s above the law. Important lesson there.

    (Here is a single case in point. There is no requirement that slates of electors must vote for the winning candidate in their state unanimously. In fact, there’s no requirement that they even vote for someone on any ballot. The electors we all vote for (believing we’re voting for a candidate) can go to the electoral college and vote for anyone they damn please. So let the parties campaign for whoever they want, the real power lies in selecting the electors, a process largely invisible to the electorate.)

  9. Flint:

    How about “I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and I wouldn’t lose a single vote”? He does seem to have a lot of insight about how cult members think.

    That’s a good point. He certainly got that one right. But was that a matter of insight or just observation? I’m no psychologist, but when Trump made that statement I remember thinking “he’s probably right” based on the interviews I’d seen of Trump supporters up to that point.

  10. keiths:
    Flint:

    That’s a good point. He certainly got that one right. But was that a matter of insight or just observation?

    I’d vote for intuition. In his entire life, Trump has never admitted error or backed down. It would never occur to him. He presumes, largely correctly, that his supporters think the same way. If Trump were not a bigot, for example, he’d have to analyze what bigots do and what they like and might get it wrong sometimes. But as a deep-down bigot, Trump finds no analysis necessary. He just says what he thinks, and this resonates with people in a way no intellectual or fact-based argument ever could.

  11. Allan:

    Well, seizing the reins of power so comprehensively takes a certain amount of guile. Or at least, I would have no idea how to do it, and I don’t think I’m dumb.

    You’re not dumb, but you’re constrained by ethics, decency, honesty, and a respect for democracy. Trump isn’t. Even if you could somehow amputate your moral compass, you wouldn’t be as good as Trump at lying, cheating and screwing people because unlike him, you don’t have a lifetime of practice behind you.

    I’m with Flint on this point: a major part of Trump’s appeal is that he is simply Trump, and certain people are attracted to that. Bigots and racists love him because he’s a bigot and a racist. Suckers like Bill see Trump’s swagger, confidence and inflated promises and misinterpret them as competence. People who hate immigrants or feel cheated by them love the fact that Trump himself hates immigrants, at least the brown and black ones. His anti-Somali tirades aren’t calculated, they’re sincere.

    Trump’s dishonesty is not only the essence of him and his administration, it was a prerequisite. I am certain that if Trump were an honest man, he would not be president today. Brazen lies were key to his electoral success.

    We’ve discussed lots of examples, but i don’t think we’ve touched on this one: Trump promised to cut energy costs in half within his first 12 months in office, 18 months at the most. That hasn’t happened, it isn’t happening, and it was never going to happen. You (Allan) would never be dishonest enough to make a ridiculous promise like that, but Trump was. He figured the lie would win him votes, and that’s all that mattered. A willingness to lie shamelessly is a huge electoral advantage.

  12. Here’s a video:

    Donald Trump Pledges To Halve Energy & Electricity Prices In First 12 Months Of Office

    It’s worth watching the video because you can see from Trump’s tone and demeanor how easily and effortlessly he lies, no matter how ridiculous the lie is. It’s as natural to him as breathing.

    He said:

    I will cut the price of energy and electricity in half. Ready? 12 months from January 20th — I take office on January 20th — your electric bill including cars, air conditioners, heating, everything — your total electric bill will be 50 — five-oh — 50% less. We’re going to cut it in half and we have it — we have the power to do it because we have it — we don’t need ships, we don’t need long train, we have everything. We’re going to have to build some pipelines because we can’t transport it but that’s easy to do and that’s safer than trains. But we’re going to get this done and you’re going to have within one year — think of it — within one year you’re going to have electric bills and energy bills and your gasoline for your car is going to be five-oh, 50% cheaper than it is right now. That’s a big thing, that’s a big thing. but we will seriously expedite our environmental approvals. I will expedite them. If I have to I’ll just approve them and approve them because they use that, you know, they use the environmental approvals to stop progress. And quickly double our electricity capacity, and we’re going to have it doubled and tripled. This will drive down inflation and make America and Michigan the best place on Earth.

    No hedging this time with the “18 months at the latest” qualifier. He said 12 months. which means that unless he can cut energy prices by more than 50% in the next seven days, which of course is impossible, his promise has failed spectacularly. Which is what you’d expect, because it was never possible. He was lying.

  13. keiths,

    I was playing a gig just after his first election and a woman sidled up to me at the interval to ask me, out of the blue, what I thought of him. “As a woman”, she said “I admire his strength”. Puke. It’s remarkable how some people are attracted by this kind of wealthy boor. Men, meanwhile, almost prepared to offer their wives as concubines. Musk’s another. Political insight of a 5 year old, but huge fanbase. If he was dirt poor, no-one would listen.

  14. One for the stupidity files:

    On Greenland: “Just because they landed a boat there 500 years ago doesn’t mean they own the land…”.

    Uh… America? Nice place, I’ll take it.

  15. Allan:

    I was playing a gig just after his first election and a woman sidled up to me at the interval to ask me, out of the blue, what I thought of him. “As a woman”, she said “I admire his strength”. Puke.

    Was she American? Do you look like a MAGA type? How odd that she would ask you that. How did you answer?

    ETA: It was probably the red cap you were wearing.

    ETA2: I went looking for a pic and found this at the Trump Store. Look at the price.

    Screenshot 2026 01 13 151141 (Custom)

  16. keiths,

    Was she American? Do you look like a MAGA type? How odd that she would ask you that. How did you answer?

    No, she was English. I don’t look MAGA! I’m 6’2″, 190lb… I said I wasn’t a fan. I disliked him even then, though that was only based on catching an episode of The Apprentice and thinking “what a twat”.

  18. Allan:

    I don’t look MAGA!

    Haha. When I wrote that, I thought “How is he going to interpret this?”

    Do you think that woman was hitting on you, but just had a weird pickup line?

  19. keiths:
    Allan:

    Haha. When I wrote that, I thought “How is he going to interpret this?”

    I look like a latte-chugging woketard soy boy!

    Do you think that woman was hitting on you, but just had a weird pickup line?

    No, she was with a guy. I think the opener might have been to say something nice about my performance (because of course!), but it’s the Trump thing that sticks in the mind; it came out of left field.

  21. Allan:

    Unfiltered like swamp water.

    colewd:

    Yea especially for a well educated Englishman 🙂

    Are you still thinking that Allan is a delicate flower because he’s English and well educated? He doesn’t seem delicate to me, though he is a latte-chugging woketard soy boy, or at least looks like one.

  22. keiths,

    Well, I was initially tempted by ‘diarrhoea’ rather than swamp water, so I guess I was restrained. Something of a myth that we Brits are polite! We don’t say ‘cuck’ and ‘retard’ at the drop of a hat, but can be pretty robust. Other myths: we have no free speech, live under Sharia Law and are crippled by knife crime. By the same token, all Americans wear ten gallon hats.

  23. Allan:

    I was playing a gig just after his [Trump’s] first election and a woman sidled up to me at the interval to ask me, out of the blue, what I thought of him. “As a woman”, she said “I admire his strength”. Puke.

    It reminds me of this, from some woman on Fox News whose name I don’t know:

    I saw this morning, actually, it was Dr. Oz who said that President Trump has the highest testosterone level of any man over 70 that he’s ever seen.

    He’s so manly! And such tiny hands!

    But you compare President Trump to someone — I mean any of the Democratic male leaders, someone like Tim Walz, if you will, you know, Mr. Jazz Hands. You ask any 20-year-old boy, especially on a college campus, who they would rather spend a day golfing with, President Trump or Tim Walz.

    That’s easy. I saw a Harry Enten video showing that Trump’s popularity among Gen Z went from +10 in February to -32 now. A massive 42-point drop. Tim Walz is at +0 — even. Maybe Trump can get some Young Republicans to play golf with him, but Gen Z as a whole would much rather hang out with Tim Walz.

    keiths:

    Was she American? Do you look like a MAGA type?

    Allan:

    I don’t look MAGA! …I look like a latte-chugging woketard soy boy!

    After my success with the bat-challenged Englishman and the “projecting patrician”, I had to give “latte-chugging woketard soy boy” a try. Gemini and Grok wouldn’t touch it — “woketard” activated their safety systems — but I got Midjourney to bite, with these results:

    woketard soy boy (Custom)

    I see some avatar potential, Allan.

  24. Nothing to do with this post… not yet:
    Does anybody here remember when Trump said more than once that he was going to negotiate with Putin a deal to cut the military spending in half?

  25. J-Mac:
    Nothing to do with this post… not yet:
    Does anybody here remember when Trump said more than once that he was going to negotiate with Putin a deal to cut the military spending in half?

    I don’t remember that, but it would be a tall task. Congress appropriates more for the military than they ask for, every year, because defense spending is spread out through basically every Congressional district in the country. They have purchased security from budget cuts or force reductions.

  26. A nice triple example of Trump’s stupidity is his frequent boasting about his performance on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test.

    1) He thinks it’s an aptitude test when it’s actually a dementia test:

    I took—those are very hard—they’re really aptitude tests, I guess, in a certain way.

    2) He told Chris Wallace that the last five questions were hard:

    Because, yes, the first few questions are easy, but I’ll bet you couldn’t even answer the last five questions. … They get very hard, the last five questions.

    Here are the last five questions:

    1. He had to repeat each of two sentences as they were read to him: “I only know that John is the one to help today” and “The cat always hid under the couch when the dogs were in the room.”

    2. He had to name 11 or more words starting with the letter ‘F’ in one minute. An entire minute! Even if he only managed to produce one word every five seconds, he’d still pass.

    3. He had to explain what “train” and “bicycle” had in common. Ditto for “watch” and “ruler”.

    4. He had to recall five words that he had been given five minutes earlier (and had rehearsed twice).

    5. He had to state the current month, day, and year, identify which day of the week it was, name the city he was in and the place where he was taking the test (the hospital).

    3) He thinks other people are as stupid as he is:

    We have a great group of people, which they don’t. They have Jasmine Crockett, a low-IQ person. They have –AOC is low IQ. You give her an IQ test. Have her pass the exams that I decided to take when I was at Walter Reed. I took– those are very hard. They’re really aptitude tests, I guess in a certain way. But they’re cognitive tests. Let AOC go against Trump. Let Jasmine go against Trump.

    I don’t think Jasmine– the first couple of questions are easy, a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe, you know. When you get up to about five or six, and then when you get up to 10 and 20 and 25, they couldn’t come close to answering any of those questions.

    Jasmine Crockett is a law school graduate. AOC is a cum laude graduate of Boston University with a degree in international relations and economics. Listen to either of them for five minutes and there is no question that they would absolutely smoke Donald Trump on an actual IQ test.

    Try to imagine how stupid you would have to be to mistake a dementia test for an IQ test, think that those last five questions were hard, and believe that other people who are obviously far smarter would struggle with the easy questions that you found so difficult.

    Bill, you’ve been struggling to admit Trump’s dishonesty. What about intelligence? Can you acknowledge that Jasmine Crockett and AOC are far more intelligent than he is?

  28. Allan:

    The Nobel Prize thing. I mean. I can’t… what…

    A monument to stupidity and narcissism. Look at him beaming in that photo. The guy actually thinks that being given that medal reflects well on him, when she’s just trying to manipulate him. And even if she weren’t, no one with any dignity would accept the gift. It’s an embarrassment. Totally unearned.

    We should start giving him Good Conduct medals (gold, of course, with diamonds) every time he backs down from something stupid or evil he was about to do. Train him like a puppy.

  30. keiths:
    Here’s Jimmy Kimmel mocking Trump and offering to give him all of his awards if he agrees to pull out of Minneapolis.

    Jimmy Kimmel?
    Didn’t he want the unvaccinated people dead on arrival at ER?
    You are not stupid enough to believe the bs on whatever? I don’t watch this s..t…

  31. Flint: I don’t remember that, but it would be a tall task. Congress appropriates more for the military than they ask for, every year, because defense spending is spread out through basically every Congressional district in the country. They have purchased security from budget cuts or force reductions.

    You believe that congress doesn’t benefit from the military overspending???

  32. J-Mac:

    Jimmy Kimmel?
    Didn’t he want the unvaccinated people dead on arrival at ER?

    No. Here’s what he said:

    Dr. Fauci said if hospitals get any more overcrowded they’re going to have to make some very tough choices about who gets an ICU bed. That choice doesn’t seem so tough to me. ‘Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right in, we’ll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo [ivermectin]? Rest in peace, wheezy.’

    J-Mac:

    You are not stupid enough to believe the bs on whatever? I don’t watch this s..t…

    I watch Kimmel for laughs, not for information, and in any case I know how to fact check. I’d love to teach Bill how to do that but he isn’t interested.

  33. J-Mac, to Flint:

    You believe that congress doesn’t benefit from the military overspending???

    Flint’s point is exactly the opposite. He’s saying that members of Congress whose districts benefit from defense spending are inclined to vote for defense spending because it benefits them politically.

  34. Trump now threatening to tariff European countries over Greenland. How many reasons is it now for tariffs? As the saying goes: when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

  35. Keiths,
    Do you think religious people like Trump believe in purgatory? I was recently threatened by some religious group that unless I repent and change my course of criticism of religious beliefs I will end up there with Trump…
    Can you belive it?

  36. J-Mac:

    Keiths,
    Do you think religious people like Trump believe in purgatory?

    Trump is about as religious as a doorknob, but he does seem to be concerned about hell. Example from August:

    I want to try and get to heaven, if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole.

    It was a momentary admission that he’s an asshole. To my knowledge, he’s never mentioned purgatory, though. The weird Paula White types in his orbit are all Protestants, and purgatory is a Catholic thing.

    I was recently threatened by some religious group that unless I repent and change my course of criticism of religious beliefs I will end up there with Trump…
    Can you belive it?

    Yes, I can believe it. Fear of hell (and purgatory) is one of the weapons that proselytizers use to scare people into religious conformity.

  37. Allan:

    Trump now threatening to tariff European countries over Greenland. How many reasons is it now for tariffs? As the saying goes: when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

    Bill, do you support Trump’s idiotic and dangerous Greenland policy?

  39. keiths:
    Allan:

    Bill, do you support Trump’s idiotic and dangerous Greenland policy?

    It is certainly interesting how it has suddenly become MAGAs’ fondest wish; a place they had barely given a thought to before Trump said “want snowy place”.

    I clipped a Lawrence O’Donnell quote the other day, though not the source: “if you mix together pathological lying with ignorance and relentless stupidity, you will sound like you are in neurological decline all the time even if you’re not.”.

    I wonder if there is any whim that could not become their fondest wish? The parallels with Nazi Germany are too close to be mere hyperbole.

  42. Sooo… Trump is going to sign an Executive Order banning networks from broadcasting any other game while the Army-Navy game is on. A Trump apologist will be along shortly to explain why this is a perfectly rational act, and anyone thinking otherwise has raging TDS.

    He is also planning to make his horse a Senator.

  43. God, I can’t keep up. He has now written to the Norwegian premier blaming the country for not giving him the Nobel (he wasn’t even eligible at the cutoff), and, because he didn’t get it, he no longer feels the obligation to be peaceful. “You didn’t give me Miss Congeniality, so fuck congeniality”.

    Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.

    Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.

    I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT

    No genius was ever more stable.

  44. Allan:

    God, I can’t keep up. He has now written to the Norwegian premier blaming the country for not giving him the Nobel (he wasn’t even eligible at the cutoff), and, because he didn’t get it, he no longer feels the obligation to be peaceful.

    Stupid and crass and oblivious to the fact that saying shit like that makes him look a perfect twat.

    I heard this quote today, from a speech at a ceremony where Southern Boulevard in Palm Beach was being renamed in his honor:

    But starting on Day One we fully secured our Southern Boulevard and stopped the… and think of it, as we were securing Southern Boulevard making Florida great, we’re also securing a thing called the southern border, and making that great…

    A normal person would have just corrected himself, but Trump does this weird thing where he thinks he can fool his audience into believing that he meant to say whatever idiotic thing just came out of his mouth. So he’ll say “and think of it” and try to bluff his way out of his mistake, which only makes it worse.

    “We fully secured our Southern Boulevard”, lol.

  48. A couple examples of Trump Logic™:

    Macron refuses to join Trump’s “Board of Peace”. Trump says:

    Nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon. I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes and he’ll join, but he doesn’t have to join.

    In the space of two sentences: “Nobody wants him, but I want him so badly that I’ll tariff the hell out of him if he doesn’t join.”

    Meanwhile, Trump claims that we need Greenland in order to counter the Russian threat in the Arctic — and then invites Putin to join his Board of Peace as a founding member.

    Perfectly sensible, perfectly logical. I can see why Bill admires him. Trump is one sharp dude.

  49. Scott Bessent: “Everyone take a deep breath. Do not escalate. Do not escalate. President Trump has a strategy here. Hear him out and then everything will be fine.”

    If your strategy requires you to beg other people not to do something, it’s not much of a strategy.

  50. keiths,

    In the space of two sentences: “Nobody wants him, but I want him so badly that I’ll tariff the hell out of him if he doesn’t join.”

    “This burger is underdone. Tariff the chef! The green is overgrown. Tariff the greenkeeper! How d’you like them tariffs? You want some more tariffs, punk? Tariff, tariff, tariff… that’s a funny word… tariff…” [exit pursued by white coats].

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