Alright, TRUMP has:
* made lots of money. Some people say that he got it from his father and just kept up with the market, despite that he has 4 siblings, spent lavishly on his personal life, and the fact that keeping up with the market for a large company is non-trivial in the first place.
* 3 adult kids who appear to be intelligent and leaders, and they all seem to like/respect him unironically.
* made friends with literally everyone from Belichick/Brady to the Clintons and other politicians to Mike Tyson to a bunch of people in the media
* had a top TV show which was basically him doing whatever he wanted
* had a top selling book where he pretty much lays out his strategy for dealing with the media that he has used to dominate the primaries
* ****ed scores of supermodels as Subfallen reminded me

Then people want to argue that the concept of a "trade deficit", which can be expressed in like 2 sentences, is too complicated for him. Dude has done construction in many international locations, bought and sold many things that actually contribute to the trade deficit, but oh, the concept of it is just too hard to wrap his head around. How about it's just politician 101, he's keeping things vague so that he can use the term in whatever way it suits him best.

Afla is spot on with the ego protection going on ITT.

a lot of people care. and even more people should care.

campaign promises, while not to be taken literally or as necessarily accurately predictive of what will actually be accomplished, do give a viewpoint into the goals of candidates or their decision making processes.

KK has a steatopygeous ass working for her.... while Trump is just a regular old ass.

People have a hard time believing that people with money are supremely stupid and ignorant people so they've got to attribute some mystical intelligence behind the idiocy.

We all have to understand our limitations, and devise a plan that works well within them. (See "Ted Cruz for President '16" for the textbook case study.)

I mean, honestly, shouldn't the existence of Ted Cruz inspire us all to be a little bolder with the goals we set for ourselves?

This is a guy born with no obvious advantages in life, yet somehow he's still a U.S. senator in the hunt for a major party nomination. <boggles>

We can't all be psychopaths

Nah. Ted's actually intelligent. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of the guy, but the chance that someone could have accomplished what he has without being very intelligent is miniscule.

This. His dam's IQ isn't even relevant; Yog-Sothoth exists on so higher a plane that all his offspring will be at least remarkable intellectually.

He was born with a big advantage in life..... he is smarter than just about everyone, even if one isn't crazy about his political positions. He is a brilliant man. Niccolo Machiavelli has nothing on this fellow.

First of all, I'm of the opinion that Trump is above average intelligence, so I don't know how much disagreement we realy have.

Everything on your list after the first * is something that is not that hard if you are rich and famous. If you are rich and famous you can have celeb friends, bang supermodels, have a TV show, get book deals, and provide a top notch education for your own kids. Kids also generally love and respect parents despite myriad shortcomings.

So all that's left is that he made a lot of money. I agree that takes some smarts, but he did have a big advantage going in (inheritance, connections, etc.). Nevertheless, he took what he was given, didn't **** it up, and did quite well. So I'll give him some credit for that and admit that his intelligence is almost certainly above average.

However wrt to the bolded, there are plenty of equally obvious things that one could explain in two sentences that he somehow failed to grasp. Some examples include:

-punishing women who seek abortions is not going to be popular with anyone
-killing family members of terrorists is a bad idea for many reasons
-giving orders to the military to do illegal things (e.g. torture) is not a good idea.

Now in each of these cases, someone quickly explained the problem after the fact and he recanted/walked it back.

Similarly, in the case of the bolded, I'm sure that someone could easily explain the difference between trade deficit and budget to him and he would get it. However, I think there is an excellent chance that he didn't know for much of his campaign (and still doesn't know). The basis for this belief is the many other equally (actually more) obvious things that he failed to understand without someone having to explain it to him after he made a mistake.

Admittedly I am on record saying that Cruz is the best news for fans of the Simulation Hypothesis since, well, forever.

I just don't understand how any amount of intelligence could overcome (1) his face and (2) the nearly transcendent level of insincerity that oozes out of it.

These discussions of "Is [whomever] smart?" are always horrible.

What Republican general election ticket has the highest EV against HRC and the Democrats?

Assume Cruz withdraws due to sex scandal and Trump, I don't know, has a "stroke" and withdraws. GOPe can pick dream team ticket at convention with no worries about riots or disaffected voters.

Kasich / Susana Martinez
Kasich / Tim Scott

True, but it's almost unavoidable when discussing Trump. I don't think the issue would have come up in 2012. In 2008, it probably came up wrt Palin, which again was unavoidable.

So in the end, I guess horrible candidates beget horrible discussions including the "Is [whomever] smart?" one.

Lol at this entire post. Not sure if serious or trolling

People frequently questioned both Obama's and Bush's intelligence. I think it comes up a lot in discussion.

If we are living in a simulation the dude at the controls needs a slap.

Intelligence should come up in things like the TPP trade agreement. Because there are intra party disagreements. In other words you can't ascribe the differences to ideology or values when two people who share values disagree as to whether a policy will reach their shared desired ends. I don't know whether Obama or Elizabeth Warren is correct as to whether TPP helps or hinders their shared goals. But since Obama is almost certainly smarter, and the TPP is complicated, I'd bet on him.

I answered a couple questions out loud from TRUMP's NYTimes interview w/o preparation, still amazed how TRUMP managed to know so little. it's hard to give worse answers.

this is ridiculous. I'd be shocked if all but one or two posters on this page couldn't answer the NYT question demonstrating significantly more understanding of the issues than TRUMP and superior common sense. maybe the absolute terribleness of TRUMP's answers faded a bit in your mind.

"Nuclear Japan, thoughts?" has a correct answer and TRUMP got it spectacularly wrong.

of all the reasons to use an appeal to authority on Obama vs warren for whom to trust, going for some measure of "intelligence" is one of the stupidest. But then you have alwasy massively overvalued silly elementary math puzzles as some huge indicator.

lol Sklansky your argument assumes that both parties are approaching the question honestly and that they do not answer to special interests. Obama got a whole lotta checks the past two election cycles from big business/Wall Street etc...

She was a full professor at Harvard and one of the most highly cited legal scholars in the country.

There are intra-party differences of ideology.

The TPP shows what fraud, fakes, crooks, and liars democrats are. We are forced to have a $15 minimum wage in California now. However, it is perfectly fine for the countries we trade with not to follow any of our environmental laws and pay their workers less than $5 per day. Then when the import, they call it free trade. They want zero tax on imports.

Why can't we have 10% of the land within our states not subject to any minimum wage laws. That would freak the government con-men and government unions out!

Then you have Obama want to send aid to these countries (because he is a fraud and does not do anything or have to pay for it). He even wants to send $100 billion to these countries (5 times more than the border fence is expected to cost) every YEAR to pay for global warming expenses.

Obama is not smart! He is the equivalent of a $4 trillion dollar a year trust fund baby!