Watch: this video shows why the word "smart" is so painful for Trump

I’d rather not upset you.

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What Biden said isn’t in the Lincoln Project video in this BoingBoing post, but it’s in this YouTube video which is just a minute long, and I’ve started it at 15 seconds in where Biden says it, if you can stand to watch for just a few seconds.

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So he was simply claiming that Biden had no right to use that word given that Biden was dumber in Trump’s lying eyes. Got it. Thanks.

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That, plus I’d say that what was extra-triggering to Trump was Biden’s use of the word in relation to Trump in relation to the huge number of Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. [edit: i.e., Trump had to quickly distract from that]

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This is one facet of his personality where I kind of feel sorry for his circumstance. Something tells me that his easy upbringing didn’t really instill an early curiosity and interest in reading, and probably was not encouraged to by his parents who likely kept their kids at arm’s length.

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When Trump debated Hillary, some of the things he said were so incredibly dumb, I thought that would definitely be the end of him. But he not only repeated some of the same idiocy, his supporters actually thought he was smart as a result.

Yeah, this. It’s what I think of as “the Idiocracy effect” - by which I mean, in trying to depict stupidity, they made the depiction itself incredibly dumb so that dumb viewers wouldn’t be alienated watching it.

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Well, but see, calling someone those things is judgemental, cause you don’t know what’s in their hearts, so you should ignore all their actions, no matter how destructive or hurtful and never call them such politically loaded terms… also, BOTH SIDES DO IT!!! /s

All this! Yes, the democratic party is a part of the establishment and empire. They are still a better option than the current GOP, who are literally the party of genocide right now.

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I tried to find out whether there is a stronger tendency among socio/psychopaths to believe that they are smarter than others than in the general population, but was unable to find a paper. However, I found this paper that suggests that psychopaths tend to be slightly less intelligent than the general population: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/100693v2

I also wonder if socio/psychopaths have a greater tendency to talk about how smart they are and obsess over it?

My going hypothesis was that people without empathy tend to view people taking actions on the basis of empathy as “dumb” or “being losers” or “suckers”, and then consequently view themselves as being more intelligent. Trump is really the only person whom I’ve had to view this behavior over a long period of time, though.

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11th-doc-this|nullxnull

We are constantly asked to bend over backwards to accomdate people with deeply bigoted views, who wish to put those views into practice, yet are hold to a higher standard of discourse than they are. Every single time. We can’t bring up privileges afforded to some over others, or long-term disparities based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc. We are asked to bring a much higher level of evidence than those who push for exclusionary policies across not just the US, but the world.

What “left-liberal” consensus is that? The one that undermined unions? That veered to the right under the Clintons on a number of issues? If he thinks that last 30 years have been “left-liberal” he must think that means something other than what it means.

Literally no one on the actually left believes that. And once again, no, the Clintons, Obama, etc, were not on the left. They are squarely center-right neo-liberalism.

Blue collar workers were also relentlessly pursued by the GOP who argued that the blame lie with the “liberal-left” (who in no meaningful way existed in the US as part of the Democratic party until recently) and with civil rights, feminists, immigrants, etc.

Yet he seems unable to define the left in any meaningful way. :woman_shrugging:

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TIL that it’s hard to portray yourself as intellectually superior while trying to make tone policing seem like compassion. Because that’s a dumb idea.

Trump knows he’s not smart. That’s why the word hurts so bad.

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“Smart” is not a precise term. I think it is a mistake to apply to Trump one way or another.

All I know is that he has outsmarted his opponents time and time again, and has managed to keep his criminal enterprise (masquerading as a government) in power, and further his horrific agenda, for four long years. Lots of “smart” people have not been able to stop this “dumb” guy all this time. Even when he kidnaps children and sends them to rape camps. You would think that would be pretty easy to stop.

Calling Trump dumb only validates his base and makes decent people continuously underestimate him. It seems to me we should stop calling him “dumb” or “not smart” and take seriously the incredible harm he has caused and the incredible danger each and every one of us is in every moment we do not take him seriously as a powerful, skilled manipulator.

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As I’ve said before, ultimately a grifter only needs to be smarter than his marks. Given the particularly stupid and ignorant suckers that make up at least 27% of the American electorate, that doesn’t make him close to smart as most of us understand the word.

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This is defiantly one of their worst ads. I get so angry when people make fun of Biden’s stuttering problem and this seems in that vein. Yeah, I internally chuckle at his clown make-up and ludicrous hair obsession, but that shouldn’t be the biggest red-flag of his ignorance.

This is just some old senile guy mispronouncing some words under pressure. If I had a camera on me 24/7 I’ll bet I make just as many gaffes as 45. It’s like body shaming: don’t mock him for how much shit he puts into his cake-hole; mock him for how much shit is coming out of it.

EDIT: grammar

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He’s avoided consequences for his actions. I’m not convinced that’s the same thing.

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Lots of extremely rich, pampered people are well-read, because they are the ones who have the time and resources to read. So while Trump’s upbringing may help explain how he turned out such a horrible human being I don’t think it was just a matter of having things too “easy.”

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I agree, as much as I hate Trump. You can piece together a supercut of verbal gaffs from anyone who does any amount of public speaking. That has nothing to do with intelligence, it’s just being human. Often the most flawless public speakers are the hollow showmen, to be suspicious of. This was a lot of Dubya’s appeal with the right. His constant word salad came off as sincerity to them (while he was torturing people in illegal prisons).

There is an endless amount of genuine things to attack with Trump. There’s no need to go for the childish cheap shots that just end up undermining the message.

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Excellent point. I really do think Trump learned a great deal from Roy Cohn and Norman Vincent Peale, and is very good at repeating nonsense phrases and mantras in a singsong-y cadence, and hypnotizes his audience. I will not listen to him, I think his speeches are actually dangerous, even though his skill is decreasing as he gets older.

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