Summary
A new book, A Very Stable Genius by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, reveals Donald Trump’s ignorance on key historical and geopolitical issues.
During a 2017 visit to the USS Arizona Memorial, Trump reportedly asked, “What’s this all about?” showing a lack of understanding of Pearl Harbor.
The book also details Trump’s confusion over India’s border with China, his eagerness to meet Vladimir Putin before taking office, and his frustration with anti-bribery laws.
The authors claim their findings are based on extensive interviews and documents.
Intelligence on par with the Americans that voted for him, twice.
Billionaires are mostly all idiots who never had to actually educate themselves. Out of the 760 of them in the USA 12-15 of them are probably in the 130+ iq range and the rest are barely above or below the 100 median range. Even with their expensive private education most of them likely paid others to do their school work like george bush was rumored to have at yale. Then with nixon and reagan severely cutting education standards at the direction of their mutual consultant roger freeman saying that we were en route for a highly educated proletariat which was a threat to them and would result in mass unemployment (since people who are intelligent enough can easily understand capitalism is exploitative and many of the wages offered are not worth the effort input) now we are in a full fledged fascist hellscape. They are so emboldened they dont even attempt to hide it anymore.
The guy looked straight into the sun. There is no ending to "Trump doesn’t understand… " that would surprise me.
"When Mr Trump early in his tenure agreed to feature in an HBO documentary in which all living presidents read from the constitution, Mr Trump blamed others in the room when he struggled to read the text.
“It’s like a foreign language,” he allegedly complained.”
People are often saying “hurr durr Trump can’t read,” but even that is not really a joke - the man truly is barely literate.
What have you done America, what the hell have you done…
Was that regular type, or the original cursive?
Look, if you invited me for a film where random lemmy-users read constitutions, I would fucking memorize that shit so that I could do it with my eyes closed. Old cursive sucks to read, and I definitely can’t read it as fast as I can talk… but come on.
What have you done America, what the hell have you done…
Apparently nothing much in terms of general education.
What have you done America, what the hell have you done…
Sided with an anti-intellectual felon rapist traitor.
Trump does not understand
Pearl Harboranything.Professor Kelley told me 100 times over three decades that “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” I remember his emphasis and inflection — it went like this — “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” Dr. Kelley told me this after Trump had become a celebrity but long before he was considered a political figure. Dr. Kelley often referred to Trump’s arrogance when he told of this — that Trump came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything.
The USA is the worst fucking society because it’s allowed these pricks that know nothing but think they know it all to fail upward their whole fucking lives. Musk is another prick exactly like this. These coddled fucking baby bitches who are going to tear down all the things that allowed them to amass such wealth. They literally think they’re above it all and think things like “stability” or “respect on the international stage” are jokes.
It’s not just born rich losers like Trump failing upward. It’s across our entire society. I personally know typical Americans who have been allowed to fail upwards their whole lives. Not intelligent people who are in roles they shouldn’t be in. It’s across the board. Our society is built to allow stupid people to fail upwards. There simply aren’t enough barriers to keep them from positions they shouldn’t be in.
I couldn’t agree more vigorously.
It’s the wealthy managers, supporters and organizers in the background that have all the intelligence to run this circus. They get people like Turnip and Muskrat to lead the show. These are just dumb figureheads that will take the fall when the show is over.
The show is run for as long and as far as possible so that the wealthy owners can get what they want (which is everything)
And if it all works, these owners can all celebrate in the shadows with all their wealth.
And if it all fails, they’ll be the first to leave, hide and say that they never had a hand in any of it.
The thing is though, that so much of that wealth is tied up in valuation of the USD, the US stock market, and the USD position as a reserve currency.
Sure, its clear they want to strip mine the US and bring US living standards down to match places like Afghanistan… But that really shows how little they understand how our own economic dominance was built on trust and stability.
Once we have lost those things, all bets are off on their wealth actually staying stable, too.
They’ve constantly been playing a balancing game since the Reagan era of trying to figure out how to take advantage of that trust while trying to make people live with as little as possible.
The balance game of treating people like slaves without making them feel like slaves.
Those of us who are well fed, well garmented and well ordered, ought not to forget that necessity makes frequently the root of crime. It is well for us to recollect that even in our own law-abiding, not to say virtuous cases, the only barrier between us and anarchy is the last nine meals we’ve had. It may be taken as axiomatic that a starving man is never a good citizen.
- Alfred Henry Louis
From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.
Will Durant
Trump understands all the worst impulses of humanity and appeals to them without hesitation or shame.
I’m not sure just living his authentic self means he “understands” the worst impulses as much as he just projects his own worst impulses onto the world.
Yeah. It’s an instinct thing. Donald Trump is not a planner.
He’s just an asshole being an asshole and that appeals to a lot of assholes in this country.
That’s true, it’s not really actual understanding. He knows how his narcissistic mind works and also has learned that if he simply follows his impulses he eventually gets what he wants.
So I guess this Professor Kelley failed him in whatever course they teach… Right?
As a college instructor, it’s difficult sometimes. The dumbest goddamn students I’ve ever had still manage to pass sometimes due to being friends with the right people or getting lucky when cheating in a way that I can’t necessarily prove. I can be 100% certain that someone cheated, but if I can’t objectively prove it, it’s really, really dangerous (to my career) to fail that student, especially when they are as connected and narcissistic as Trump.
Plus, lots of people take advantage of more inclusive accommodations and more forgiving grading or attendance policies to the point that sometimes they do pass despite knowing a tiny fraction of the material. I could eliminate a lot of that by making the tests harder and removing a lot of academic support services I offer to make the class more “sink or swim,” but then I’m mostly punishing the people that need my help the most. I just have to remind myself that it’s better to pass a student that doesn’t deserve it than it is to misjudge the situation and fail a student who legitimately just needed some additional understanding or academic support.
One would hope…
During a meeting with Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister’s “eyes bulged out in surprise”, the Washington Post reporters claim, when Mr Trump told him: “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.” China and India in fact share more than 2,000 miles of common border.
Mr Modi’s expression “shifted from shock and concern to resignation”
Modi is all of us. Shocked at the stupidity, concerned for our well being then resigned to the fact Trump doesn’t even care about either.
He appears to be unaware that Russia is a neighbour to the US.
The article is not a long read, and recounts a number of other horrifyingly stupid things.
“It’s not like you have China at your border”
Ugh
“I have had a two-hour meeting with Putin. That’s all I need to know … I’ve sized it all up. I’ve got it.”
The common thread is his default assumption that he already knows everything important there is to know. This is the sign of someone not only profoundly ignorant but also profoundly stupid, who has never noticed how this assumption is always wrong.
Even I know that there’s always something important that you don’t know, but you have to draw a line and make a decision anyway, and I’m just some asshole on the internet.
Well his hero was in the European theater and died by suicide in a bunker in Berlin so it kind of makes sense he doesn’t know about the Pacific theater.
Our Army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rocket’s red glare it had nothing but victory.
Trump speaking about the Revolutionary War. I’m supposed to be surprised he doesn’t “get” Pearl Harbour?
We dominated the air in the revolutionary war for sure, but it was mainly because Britain didn’t have any airports.
This loser has had a silver spoon shoved up his ass his entire life. Hey, weren’t conservatives supposed to be against that kind of thing? Oh wait, conservatives don’t actually have standards. Trump hasn’t been forced to learn or grow because of that silver spoon. That’s why he’s an 80 year old man that acts like a 5 year old child and is about as intelligent as one. Does anyone, other than idiots, expect him to know anything about American history?
Book came out in 2020, why are they talking about it like it’s new?
I agree and don’t understand either.
The first thing I noticed when looking for it is that it is from after his last term.
Not even after… during.
I see. 👍
We should be thankful he doesn’t get Pearl Harbor, fucktard would probably try to attack Japan.
I don’t know, he seems to have pretty positive views for the axis side of WW2. He’d probably be thinking “what if we had smart loyal pilots like the japanese, but with nukes”. and would begin pushing for a supprise nuclear kamakazi strike against a nation that wouldn’t see it coming. (maybe canada).
In fairness, harbour is a pretty long word for someone with the reading comprehension of a toddler
“Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Mr Trump reportedly asked John Kelly, his then-chief of staff, when they took a private tour in 2017 of the USS Arizona Memorial, a ship commemorating the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during the Second World War.
“Trump had heard the phrase ‘Pearl Harbor’ and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else,” write the authors, who quote a former White House adviser concluding the US president was “dangerously uninformed”.
Presidents are not actually superhuman. They don’t actually know everything about the world. They typically know about as much as any other reasonably-well-educated American, plus maybe some extra stuff from their background. Donald Trump worked in real estate and branding. Harry Truman was a haberdasher. Andrew Jackson was a soldier.
They try really hard to give the impression that they’re super-familiar with everything – that’s part of the campaign. But…they aren’t.
And they’re gonna have blind spots, like anyone else.
What makes a President especially capable is that they have a large staff of advisors and experts under them who can advise them on things, not that they have everything in their own skull.
I know probably a fair bit about Pearl Harbor compared to the typical American. I think that there are interesting bits about it. But…to be honest, I’d say that it’s not really all that critical to be especially familiar with it as a President. If you’re a naval warfare historian, maybe a naval officer, sure.
I think that probably, a President’s important skills are being able to select competent people to work for them, being able to get along with them and willing to listen to them, being able to communicate well – since they are the public face of the US and the face of the government to the public – and maybe to conduct themselves ethically or something like that. Now…I don’t personally believe that Donald Trump ranks very well on those characteristics. I don’t think that he has the stuff that makes for a good President. But I also don’t think that having a lot of familiarity with naval battles, even an important naval battle, is that critical, either.
The Battle of Gettsyburg was also important from an American military history standpoint. Ditto for the Battle of Bunker Hill. But…I don’t really think that a familiarity with them is all that important for a President. If they need to get that information, they should know how to get ahold of it (which…it actually sounds like Trump was doing there, asked someone who should know.
I understand what you were going for with this comment but I think you wildly missed the mark.
I don’t expect presidents to be knowledgeable on all subjects either. I expect leaders to surround themselves with experts as well, but Trump has a long history of disagreeing with and firing his advisors and staff whenever he is wrong. This isn’t because he was in real estate, it’s because he is a narcissist and treats learning as a bruise to the ego.
I expect heads of state to take the time to know why they are visiting a place or attending an event. For all the planning and preparation for the tour and the ridiculous travel time to get to Hawaii from the east coast, you expect me to believe that the President couldn’t be bothered to at least look it up on Wikipedia? Not even considering that the president doesn’t just show up randomly at places.
Didn’t look it up, didn’t ask before hand, didn’t listen to any briefing, didn’t pay attention to where he was going. This isn’t because his background is in real estate, it’s because he is a selfish, inconsiderate, ignorant fool.
And for the record, I’d expect the president of the Union to at least understand the importance of Gettysburg.
Removed by mod
Especially considering WW2 is a complete mess of revisionist history to justify everything the allies did (just look at how many people thought ANYONE cared about the victims of the holocaust, for example) and the Pacific front is especially ignored because we very rapidly made Japan our “ally” in the wake of the war.
Fucking what.
Let me see if I can break it down more clearly:
“Nazi talking points”
They’re posting Nazi talking points.
The U.S. especially has built up this myth that they came to liberate Germany to save the Jewish people from concentration camps. Considering the Americans were anti-semitic as hell at the time, to the point they were denying Jews entry to the U.S., it’s a pretty fucking wild bit of historical revision.
You can fuck off with the “no one cared about the holocaust” bullshit.
My Oma’s family sheltered a jewish family during WW2 during Nazi occupation.
They didn’t know precisely what was happening, just that jewish people were being targeted and vanishing anywhere the Nazis controlled. A jewish family that was friends with her dad mostly fled to the US, but one man(a lawyer if memory serves) and the elderly mother stayed behind as she was deemed too sick to survive the trip. Her parents put them up.
Shortly after they were betrayed (by a starving neighbor desperate for rations who questioned why a healthy family of three had daily house calls from a doctor.)
A local industry (owned by a friend of the lawyer) stepped out and tried to get everyone including the jewish people, released from Nazi custody in return for the company relenting to Nazi pressure and helping them.
The Nazis released all of the non-jewish people, including my great-grandfather. The business changed their output slightly so that it wouldn’t be noticed that the pipes were sigificantly weaker than they should be.
Okay so that is a wild run on sentence that was very confusing to read but I think I figured out what they were going for?
I assume this person is saying that atrocities committed by Japan, such as Unit 731, are not as widely known as the Holocaust. Which was a specific deliberate choice by General MacArthur during the reconstruction of Japan following the dissolution of the monarchy.
If anyone is interested (and has 2 hours to kill lol) this video was quite illuminating on the subject.
Donald Trump was born 13 months after the end of WWII in Europe. 9 months after the fall of Japan. WWII isn’t “history” for him: he should know as much about Pearl Harbor as you do about 9/11.
Okay. How many people actually know WHY 9-11 happened? What events led up to it and what the motivations and knock ons were? At best you get a borderline meme response of “it was actually the saudis”.
Similarly, how many people living through the 00s were tricked into thinking invading Iraq had anything to do with 9-11? Similarly, how many people understood the human rights horrors that were mostly ignored in favor of “Dey got WMDs!!!”
History and propaganda are a hell of a linked thing. But, again, that is why leaders should actually read the briefings their aides make for them.
What’s any of that have to do with knowing that 9/11 happened? Standing on the Arizona Memorial, asking “What’s this all about?” isn’t asking for a dissertation on US-Japan relations, or nuances of 1940s US politics. It’s asking why there’s a big white building in the middle of the bay.
Okay. Rhetorical question because we all are historians with internet boxes but what did the Arizona do? How many Japanese planes did it down or sailors did it rescue or what? And is there anything touchy that shouldn’t be mentioned?
Again. That is not something anyone other than an SME should be expected to memorize. It IS something that should be provided as part of the briefing before you go there. Which is the fundamental difference between “ha, he is so stupid” and “he is just a fucking prick who doesn’t care”
As an example that nobody is going to read: I used to have a job that resulted in having to go to a bunch of military bases on the regular. And we would inevitably end up at a memorial or talking to a totally famous unit that we all totally cared about (the irony being that I actually do enjoy reading military history and STILL had no idea who most of them were due to military culture building up everything in the past to indoctrinate people into thinking they are part of something greater than themselves). And you learn REAL fast that just using context clues and winging it with a platitude ends REAL bad when a marine gets pissy that you didn’t properly show deference to the guys who were in that unit 20 years ago because you accidentally implied they didn’t try hard enough or they fled sooner than they did or something else.
And you know how we handled that? Googling the base and what units were stationed there at the airport while we waited for our flights. It had nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with caring enough to at least pretend to care. And the cooler folk (funny enough, almost exclusively Navy) figured out our bullshit real fast and loved to read the cliff notes while we were getting drinks after the meetings.
Similarly, how many people living through the 00s were tricked into thinking invading Iraq had anything to do with 9-11?
If I recall correctly at the height of the Iraq War it was like 80% of the country believed they were connected.
This isn’t some obscure statistic or random battle that he is ignorant of. It’s literally the inciting incident that got the United States to join the war. The Japanese forces launched a sneak attack on the US there, that’s literally all he needed to know.
You either don’t understand that either, in which case you’re showcasing your own ignorance, or you’re making excuses for him, in which case you’re a sycophant and can be disregarded.
The point is he wasnt lacking the knowledge of why pearl harbor happened, but wtf the memorial was even about.
The point is he is a prick who didn’t even care enough to pay attention to the briefing someone was reading him in the car/helicopter ride over.
But we see this time and time again where people watched too much House or West Wing growing up and want to “gotcha” people for not having an encyclopedic knowledge of every single topic they are ever going to run into. And that is a fundamentally stupid mindset that discourages people from ever admitting “I don’t know, let me get back to you”. I mean, just look at the person who is naive enough to think people know ANYTHING about 9-11 just because they lived through the early 00s.
But there IS a very big difference between quickly memorizing some bullet points (Pearl Harbor was bad. Japan attacked us but be cool about that because they are our allies… for now. These ships sustained damage so make sure you talk about how awesome they were. Etc) and remembering off the top of your head the exact number of planes a given pilot downed after heroically getting into the air. People think everyone needs to be President Bartlet with the power of an entire writer’s room behind you.
Which, ironically, lines up with a lot of the anti-intellectual bullshit that fasacists the world around have been pushing for decades. The villain with twenty PhDs is actually stupid because they don’t know one bit of trivia that the hero, and by association you the viewer, do.
