For a year, Publius has used Dumb Don Trump’s words to show that he suffers from a monster intellectual deficit that prevents him from functioning as President. Publius has demonstrated repeatedly that Don is both illiterate and innumerate and that key parts of his brain do not function. The sophisticated policies our nation needs to move ahead are far, far beyond his abilities.
In Don Trump Learns to Travel on February 12, 2016, Publius showed that Don is unable think through the impact of what he says, even on his own business.
In Learning to Count With Don Trump on February 25, 2016, Publius showed that Don’s mass deportation of the undocumented will, at a minimum, triple the Federal budget, forcing massive tax increases and a staggering rise in the national debt. Either Don ran the numbers and didn’t care or didn’t run the numbers and didn’t care. Whichever it is, Don made it clear to all of us well before the election that core parts of his brain do not function.
In Don Trump Learns Foreign Policy on May 24, 2016, Publius showed again that Dumb Don is unable to put simple thoughts together. Because he can’t think, he contradicts himself sentence to sentence while being convinced that he makes complete sense.
In Don Trump and The Mexican Drug Lords on July 13, 2016, Publius showed that, international businessman that he is, Don doesn’t know how a
wire transfer works. Let alone that if his misassumption could work, it would drive into the country a massive influx of drugs and of the undocumented looking for work.
In Dumb Don on September 18, 2016, Publius gave voters a ninth grade English teacher test that anyone could use on Don’s campaign speeches to show that Don can’t read or write any better than a poorly performing ten-year old. And let voters imagine the difficult conversation Don’s elementary school teachers must have had with his parents some six decades ago.
In Illiterate Don and You on September 19, 2016, Publis showed that Don’s illiteracy is driven by a much deeper problem: his inability to think. In other words, Don suffers from monster developmental deficiencies. Don doesn’t lie because he is incapable of knowing the difference between fact and fiction. To him the two run together in a kind of intellectual sludge.
In Dumb Don and Walmart on November 12, 2016, Publius showed that Don cannot read a balance sheet and understands nothing about supply chain management in the information age. This is why Don wants to apply long obsolete trade policies that will force Americans to pay much more and live much worse. Publius then showed that Don has no idea that he has no idea that this is the case.
In Dumb Don’s Terror Trap on January 22, 2017, Publius showed that Don went ahead with his campaign for the Presidency after Publius told him what was obvious to us all, that his global network of Trump-branded properties is an ideal target for terrorists. Publius warned Trump that these properties had to be fortified immediately for his campaign to continue. He did nothing, exposing tens of thousands of people to the delights of global terror. Just the judgement we want in a President.
What we have is FDR’s wheelchair problem. FDR did anything not to be seen in his wheelchair and keep the public unaware of his inability to walk. Don tries to hide his illiteracy by refusing to read briefing papers because, he claims, they are boring.
Don’s Tweets serve a perfect purpose for his stunted, fractured intellect. Tweets have no grammar; any collection of words will do. They do not have to be connected with one another in any logical form. They are the Planck Length of intellection. Perfect for Don’s shattered brain. Any number of them can be scattered in any direction. They give the illusion of literacy where there is none.
It is no surprise to Publius, therefore that, less than a month after he was inaugurated, Dumb Don’s administration has collapsed into utter confusion, misdirection and inaction.
As Steve Jobs said in his famous interview with Walt Mossberg, “Anyone could have done this. They just didn’t.”
Indeed, had the Democrats, Republicans and the media done what Publius did using Dumb Don Trump’s freely available speeches, comments and memos, Don would never have made the presidency. And we would have been spared all misery into which the nation has been plunged.
Smart people, like former CIA Director James Woolsey, bailed before they were tarred by Don’s brush. Incompetent mediocrities like Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway have covered themselves in Don’s muck. How Defense Secretary Mattis and Secretary of State Tillerson will manage this inchoate mess is anybody’s guess. But it won’t be pretty because, as Publius has shown, it can’t be.
Don’s cabinet and Party are now learning about the number nine. That’s the 9:1 ratio by which the people of Manhattan, who know Don best, voted against him. Manhattanites aren’t stupid. They are the center of global business and would love nothing more than to have one of their own as top boss. But, they know better than anyone that putting someone into the presidency who cannot read and write is not a good idea.
Now everyone else learning about the number nine.
Update
August 16, 2017
Dumb Don loves making Publius look like a genius. Once again, our Hacksident has turned himself into a zero. He has just been forced to disband all his CEO Advisory Councils after more and more CEOs left because of his dumb comments on the Charlottesville VA white supremacist terror attack.
May 22, 2018
The Dumb Dude's attempt to work out a trade deal with China ended up being as incoherent as his 12-mistake Trumplish sentence in Dumb Don. His staggering intellectual insufficiencies sabotaged his trade negotiations with China in a way that China can see see how to play Don's mental limitations to its benefit.
Critically, the members of Don's negotiating team fell out with each other publicly in China as if they were all separate parts of Don's illiterate sentence.
This is the cost of Don's Trumplish. No one on Don's team speaks Trumplish -- only Don does this -- so that everyone on his team has a different understanding of what Don says and follows it. And Don cannot tell any of them what he means, because he doesn't know what he means.
For China ("The Center of Everything "in Chinese ), this is money in the bank.
For us?
We just pay.
September 10, 2018
It took nearly two years since Publius published Dumb Don, but the anonymous editorial page piece in the New York Times by a Trump admin insider on September 5th confirms everything you read here. The real stunner is that Publius made everyone aware of the problem well before the election, starting with Don Trump Learns to Travel and Learning to Count With Don Trump, both in February 2016 and on to Don Trump Learns Foreign Policy in May, 2016, Don Trump and the Mexican Drug Lords in July, 2016, this piece on Dumb Don, and then Illiterate Don and You in September 2016.
So why would anyone with any brains ever work with such a fool? And what were the Repos thinking when they allowed him to run for the nomination?
December 7, 2018
It took Fox News' Tucker Carlson two and a half years after he read Dumb Don's August 15, 2016 misfire on US security to admit want he has long known. He told Dei Weltwoche that Don is incapable of learning, let alone acting. Well done Tucker! You've deliberately mislead Fox audiences for years. Now tell them what they are supposed to do about this.
September 2, 2020
It is amazing that even after four years after Publius first showed Dumb Don's intellectual incontinence and reliance on Trumplish, which, because it is syntax free cannot be translated into English, journalists like the Washington Post's Josh Dawsey are still marveling at Don's inability to converse coherently in English. Do these folks not do their homework? Dawsey didn't even bother to explain to readers the implications of Don's August 15, 2016 national security paper, something he absolutely had to do right at the beginning of his piece.