His quote is stupid, however. Calling any U.S. President “the dumbest” is a bit like saying that Nellie Fox is the worst player in baseball’s Hall of Fame. All of our elected Presidents were remarkable, and if they weren’t, they wouldn’t have become President. All of them were above average intelligence too. We don’t know their IQs; we do know that the correlation between intelligence and leadership ability is tenuous at best in the White House. Some of our most intelligent Presidents ranged from mediocre to disastrous in office: John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Taft, Wilson, Kennedy, Carter, Obama. Several of the least intellectually gifted did remarkably well, notably Harry Truman.
Who were “the dumbest” Presidents? I’d say Zachary Taylor, our 12th President, showed few signs of intellectual acuity (he took an unusual long time to learn to read and write). Warren G. Harding had no apparent impressive intellectual skills: his greatest talent was making friends. George W. Bush would be in the bottom five, and Gerald Ford, who never was elected, probably belongs at the dead bottom of the ranking, with Joe Biden slightly ahead of him.
Calling Donald Trump “dumb” takes a lot of chutzpah from a Democrat. Trump has outmaneuvered that party at every turn, indeed broken it. They have tried to jail him, impeach him, get him killed, mark him as a traitor. Wow, the big dummy somehow keeps coming out on top, just like he succeeded in the competitive worlds of construction, hotels, casinos and reality TV… finally, politics. It is also ironic that in the process of calling Trump dumb, Jeffries went on to say he “failed on immigration enforcement.” How exactly would he define succeeding in immigration enforcement? Not enforcing the laws, like Trump’s predecessor?
Oh—Somebody please ask Rep. Jeffries about his fellow Somali-American Rep. Omar reading “World War II” as “World War Eleven.” That, I believe, is signature significance. Then ask Rep. Omar to recite the Presidents of the United States in order. I bet she can’t. I bet she can’t name a third of them.
Bravo and Bravo! No, Trump is not the dumbest President we’ve ever had and some of our smartest have let the office defeat them.
“It is also ironic that in the process of calling Trump dumb, Jeffries went on to say he “failed on immigration enforcement.”
That takes a lot of chutzpah! It’s right up there with the Democratic Talking Point of “It isn’t what it is”. For Jeffries to even make such a claim, knowing full well that his party and its deranged followers refuse to assist, intervene, dox, assault and try to kill I.C.E officers regularly in order to prevent enforcement of our immigration laws.
“For Jeffries to even make such a claim, knowing full well that his party and its deranged followers refuse to assist, intervene, dox, assault and try to kill I.C.E officers regularly in order to prevent enforcement of our immigration laws…”
should finish with….shows how little he fears being called on it.
Trump succeeded brilliantly on closing the border, one of the key mandates of his election.
He has not done so well on dealing with the illegal immigrants already here. I think careless and sloppy work has led to many pr problems. To be sure, Democrats have been resisting the hell out of deporting anyone. They’d probably rally behind Ted Bundy if he were an illegal facing deportation.
With one hand, Trump can do great things. With the other hand, Trump can do stupid things. Which hand will Americans vote for next month?
I’m fairly certain the continuous white-hot anger of the political class directed at Trump stems from his winning the biggest electoral prize as a rank amateur on the first try. So much for the expertise they purport to deal in. They’ve been stamping their feet like Yosemite Sam ever since 2016.
I think you are undervaluing IQ. I will explain why.
Many decades ago, I worked at McDonald’s and was a trainer. McDonald’s employees were trained in 3, 4-hour shifts. The first 30 minutes, the trainee would watch a video about what they were going to do, then they would spend the next 3.5 hours of instruction and doing the task. Let’s say the person is training on morning grill. The first day, they watch a video on how to make Egg McMuffin sandwiches.
Step1: Take the lid off the egg rings, butter rings, and crack an egg into each ring. Replace the lid and put water in the cup to steam the top. Set the timer.
Step 2: Separate English muffins onto a spatula, put them in the toaster and start the toaster. Get a tray ready. Make sure you took the spatula out of the toaster or it will burn you when you remove the muffins.
Step 3. When the muffins are done, take them out with the spatula, put them on the tray. Butter both sides with the brush. Put sausage and cheese on the Sausage McMufin with egg ones, cheese only on the Egg McMuffins.
Step 4. When the time goes off, lift the rings off the grill. Use a spatula to put each egg ‘hockey puck’ onto the bottom muffin. Put a slice of Canadian bacon on top of the Egg Mcmuffins.
Step 5. Put the top muffin half on the sandwiches and put them on top to be wrapped.
After 30-45 minutes, about 50% of trainees can do this by themselves. Then we will train them on how to make the biscuit sandwiches. On day 2, we will then teach them how to make scrambled eggs and hotcakes, then have them make the biscuit sandwiches and McMuffin sandwiches again. On day 3, they will be taught how to make biscuits and salads. Then they are trained and can be scheduled for normal shifts.
What about the other 50%? Well, the other 50% will spend all 3 days trying to figure out how to make the McMuffin sandwiches. No matter how you explain it, no matter how many times they do it, they will not be able to do it themselves.
It was shocking to me at 18 that people couldn’t learn this. But they couldn’t. The managers said this is normal. At the end of the training, I would tell the managers to hire the 50% that could do the job and fire the 50% that couldn’t. There never was an ‘almost’ could do the job. There never was someone that took a full day to learn how to do the McMuffins, but could then learn it and move on. They either could learn it fairly easily or they could never learn it. This is the ~83 IQ level the military found was the bare minimum for being useful.
I recognize the characteristics of the 50% that could never work at McDonald’s in some of our elected representatives. I think Trump has an above average IQ, but is surrounded at many times by sub-83 IQ people and it makes him think he is a genius.
When you get to the ~83 IQ level, IQ becomes incredibly important.
Sure, because that was the original purpose of IQ tests: to measure intelligence deficiencies. The creator of the scale himself said it had no legitimacy for measuring above average intelligence.
But this post is about politicians…