I don’t think he is smart.
You don’t need intelligence to play the fear & loathing populist card to get into power. You just need the instincts & cojones of a mass-marketeer / con-man.
Its just that most politicians have been ethical enough, or sufficiently protective of their ‘brand’ that they haven’t generally sunk to this level.
Until now.
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He knows how to read a room and lie to people, most conmen do.
He may be street smart, manipulative absolutely. He is lucky that many Americans are just as dumb as he is, if not dumber. But he is certainly not smart.
As for his victory, I genuinely don’t think he wanted to win.
Bannon as his strategist is the main reason he won the election imo. He was the charismatic anti-establishment populist outsider throwing stones in every direction. He was helped by the FBI, the Russians, systemic electoral issues, Hillary’s candidacy, the horrendous Clinton ‘election strategy’, the DNCs corruption, an ignorant or uninformed public, even the weather helped him in the end.
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But he’s still in power.
He’s still doing his ■■■■■■ personal business deals.
A zillion democrats keep decrying everything he does (and all the other scumbags he’s empowered and emboldened) but they are not in power and he is.
He is still winning.
Yes, he is still in power. There is not a Presidential election till 2020 after all. The last election he made about himself came out bad for him, and thanks to that result those business deals will be scrutinised.
In many ways I agree with your contention that he is not dumb. He is undoubtedly cunning. Cunning to a very high degree in his specialty areas given where it has taken him in life. Woefully and intractably ignorant in others, as documented by current and former staff members.
Given his twitter meltdowns of late I wonder how much he feels like a winner at times. He’s got to the point where pretty much only a DOJ guideline that sitting Presidents won’t be indicted is protecting him.
I’m largely quibbling around the edges.
Not just to Mueller. I read an interesting article that pointed out that the Republican House Intelligence Committee under Devin Nunes has ironically helped Mueller’s cause quite a bit. They made the enquiry into Russia interfering with the election so soft ball and easy on Republican witnesses, with no tough questions, that the witnesses felt they could say whatever they wanted. Including in some cases lying. And nothing was done, and the Republicans walked away happy.
Until that is Mueller has collected the evidence that they’ve lied, and suddenly he has them over a barrel lying to congress (which is a crime).
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Actually, I think the plan was to simply increase his brand name and build his power. I’m with @HirdMentality that he wasn’t actually trying to win, and that’s caused a lot of problems for him.
If he was truly in it to lose it, then yes he kind of did.
That said, I agree he’s not as stupid as many on the left like to think.
I don’t see him as inherently stupid, but definitely uninformed and disinterested. His modus operandi is to trust his gut and instincts. So he makes ill informed decisions after ignoring or rejecting critical information that he needed to know.
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Reporters are starting to suggest that sources close to other high profile prospective Chief of Staff candidates are also indicating that they are not interested.
I am sure someone from Fox News will get the gig.
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Senator Mark Meadows, Freedom Caucus member, is in the frame as a chance I believe.
Exactly, to shi?t on everybody and everything from a great height. Makes a change from the usual neocon instinct which is to give us the most diseased and trickly little golden shower manageable with an inverted pizzle.
I saw that. He’s got a cushy and lucrative guaranteed career where he is. Why would he want to subject himself to the inevitable humiliation Trump dishes out?
Having direct access to the president would give him quite a bit of power and would make his donors giddy, especially when said president is notoriously malleable.
Yes I saw most of it has been redacted, I still believe that if they had anything about collusion, we’d know by now.
Right now, there’s absolutely nothing out there in the public domain RE: indictments that even suggests a whiff of collusion.
The meat of the stuff in the Cohen indictment has been known for well over a year. Cohen was working on Trump’s behalf to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow, it even got to a stage where Trump signed a letter of intent but it ended up not going anywhere. These facts have been well known for a while.
It got to the point where Cohen just emailed a generic email address to the Russian Federation and didn’t get a response until the assistant to a Kremlin spokesperson (Peskov) called him and they spoke on the phone - that’s something new coming out of Cohen’s plea deal. Putin had nothing to do with these deals.
Cohen hid from Congress, the extent of his dealings with respect to the Trump Tower dealings - which went absolutely nowhere. That’s what he’s getting nailed for.
On trump. he is a property developer.
one thing ultra successful property developers do is ‘work well’ with government.
absolutely doesnt suprise me he has dealings with Russia. makes absolute sense.
And why would Trump want to put any nation off side where he wants to build a tower or any other development?. he builds them or trys too where there are large concentrations of affluent people. he makes his money off servicing the rich. he always has.
I’m more intrigued by his antagonistic approach to china. and I suspect it’s due to them not allowing him to invest there. conveniently aligned with a public position that it helps all Americans.
FWIW attempting to crimp chinese economic growth might actually be the best environmental policy possible.
who knew, trump the accidental environmentalist.
Since when is working with Russian banks and sanctioned parties considered normal? 
Except there was no financing done - the deal fell through and the only conversation with someone affiliated with the Kremlin was a 20 minute conversation with the assistant of some low level bureaucrat that went no where.
Except he has been dealing with Russian banks and Russians for decades?
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