It's all over but the pouting

[MeDotOrg]

If I had to guesstimate, I would put Trump's IQ at 110-115. Keep in mind, Spiro Agnew's IQ was 135. What makes Trump behave so unintelligently is his narcissism, not his IQ.

[Some Schmo]

If I had to guesstimate, I would put Trump's IQ at 110-115. Keep in mind, Spiro Agnew's IQ was 135. What makes Trump behave so unintelligently is his narcissism, not his IQ.

You and I seem to agree on most things, but not on this one. I think he'd be lucky to crack 85 on an IQ test.

ETA: Having taken a few IQ tests, I'm left with the impression that the kinds of questions they ask are not in the areas Trump might excel. To be entirely fair, I don't think an IQ test is a great measure of overall intelligence (and I say that having scored well). It's a good test of a particular area of intelligence, an area (among many others) where Trump is likely a complete dumbass.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Good comment from the Reddits:

The American right is a machine built not for governing but for opposition. You can see the results when Republicans take power: After cutting taxes for the wealthy, gutting environmental regulations and making life harder for workers and immigrants, they’re pretty much out of ideas. When a genuine crisis hits, they can barely be bothered to deal with it, which is why 400,000 Americans and counting have died from covid-19.

But when they’re out of power? That’s when they really shine. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for instance, is not a particularly good legislator, but he’s a wizard at grinding government to a halt.

Likewise, the extraordinary propaganda apparatus of the conservative media is made for anger and outrage, which isn’t about getting things done but about ginning up indignation at what Democrats are doing.

So with a new Democratic president and Congress coming in, Republicans should be back in their happy place, ready to make his life miserable, undermine the country’s faith in its government and whip their followers into a frenzy, the glorious holy war renewed once again.

But this time, it might be harder than usual.

The first and biggest problem they face is President Biden himself. During the 2016 primaries, many liberals — I’ll include myself here — were lukewarm toward him, hoping for a nominee with a more expansive progressive vision. But the party’s voters decided to go with the familiar old white guy with a reputation as a moderate, on the theory that he’d be most palatable to the general electorate.

I’ll admit it: I was wrong, and they were right.

One of the consequences was that unlike in every campaign in decades, the GOP did not try to portray the Democratic nominee as a sinister villain with secret plans to destroy America and kill your family. Why not? My guess is that they polled and focus-grouped it, and it didn’t work. Voters might not have been bursting with love for Biden, but by and large they saw him as a decent guy who knows his way around government, whether they agreed with his particular proposals or not.

So the best substitute for the usual attacks was to say not that Biden was a monster who sought to plunge America into an unceasing nightmare, but that he was too weak to resist others on the left who had their own plans to do just that. Antifa! Uppity black people asking not to be shot by police! Cities in flames, with the fire to consume the suburbs next!
That didn’t work either. So there isn’t all that much reason to think it’s going to work now.

After spending four years in a cult of personality, the right needs its opposite: a villain its base finds unfathomably loathsome and terrifying, who can be the focus of all that rage and fear. They had it with Bill Clinton, and then with Barack Obama, and then with Hillary Clinton. But even their own audiences just don’t hate Biden all that much.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean Republicans and conservative media can’t turn that mild dislike into burning hatred. It’s what they’re good at, and they’ll give it their best shot. But there isn’t much reason to think their persuasive efforts will extend outside the most fervent Republicans.

And beyond Biden himself as a personality, something else is different now.

That outrage machine works not only by getting conservatives worked up so that, for instance, they’ll turn out to vote in the midterm elections, but also by creating fear in Democrats, fear that alters those Democrats’ behavior. But I don’t know that I've ever seen a time when Democrats were less afraid of Republicans.

Yes, there are plenty of moderate Democrats who advocate centrist solutions and worry about ticking off their constituents if they go too far to the left. But as a whole, Democrats now have a deeper understanding of the dynamics of Republican opposition than they used to. That includes Biden himself and those around him.

They’ve learned from the mistakes of the Obama years, including the way his administration and congressional Democrats negotiated with themselves and assumed that substantive concessions and good-faith bargaining could get Republicans to support legislation that would be of political benefit to a Democratic president.

The Biden team is not in the grip of that delusion. All indications are that they start from the assumption that Republican opposition will be total; they’re willing to take a shot at getting some Republican support for, say, a covid-19 relief package, but they won’t waste too much time chasing it.

Just as important, they aren’t assuming that if Republicans scream and shout about Democratic legislation, the screaming and shouting will persuade the public and drain support for whatever it is the administration is trying to do. That loud opposition can be treated as background noise, something unavoidable.

Every day of this presidency, people in conservative media will be saying that Biden is terrible, his policy ideas are disastrous, and they’re hurtling us toward a hellish socialist dystopia. That will be the case no matter what Biden does or doesn’t do — and Democrats finally get it. What matters is whether their initiatives get passed, and then deliver tangible benefits to people.

To be clear, I’m not arguing that Republican opposition will fail; political outcomes are always uncertain, and things will happen that today we can’t foresee. But the right is facing some new challenges, and Republicans might have to give their machine of opposition and outrage an overhaul.

[honorentheos]

That was pretty good. Thanks for sharing it.

[DrW]

Saw a report in a mainstream media source claiming that Trump's IQ test while at the military academy scored him at a 73

Hmmm ...

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... -Trump-ha/

Our ruling
A screenshot of what appears to be a newspaper clipping claims that Trump has a 73 IQ, according to a test he took when he attended New York Military Academy in the 1960s.

That test never took place, an alumni association leader said, and the newspaper clipping pictured does not exist outside of the meme. The pictures in the post of people involved in the discovery were also cherry-picked and miscaptioned.

This post is Pants on Fire!

That may perhaps encourage ajax not to feel so hostile to fact checking?

Thanks for checking this, Chap. As mentioned, an IQ of 73 did seem low, but I didn't bother to carefully check the source.

If I were asked to estimate Trump's IQ, I would be right there with moksha: he must be below the mean, if only slightly. It was always fascinating to me how he always seemed to come off as the dumbest guy in the room - always.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I’d put him ~100. He’s stupid-clever, though. Like. He doesn’t know things, but he’s like the mobster who can own a strip club who keeps running it into debt, but somehow knows how to do favors and because people find him and his club valuable in a networking way keep him afloat. He’s ballsy, too dumb to be embarrassed by himself, but knows a guy who knows a guy and can get a deal done. Clever, and clever enough.

Until he overshoots.

Then he gets arrested. Or wins the Presidency because this world is a simulation.

- Doc

[huckelberry]

If I had to guesstimate, I would put Trump's IQ at 110-115. Keep in mind, Spiro Agnew's IQ was 135. What makes Trump behave so unintelligently is his narcissism, not his IQ.

I am inclined to see similarly. His stupidity can be truly astounding but it may be largely self created.

[huckelberry]

Doc: "or wins the presidency"

..... cough .... somehow that presents as a very apprepo comment.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Religions aren't so easily killed by facts. QAnon is an NRM, and it must go through the refiners fire as all religions do. (The original) Q's first post was to play second fiddle to a troll on 4chan who alleged Hillary Clinton would be arrested that weekend. Q claimed to have the same intel. Hillary Clinton wasn't arrested. I think it's generally accepted in Q-verse that Hillary Clinton wasn't arrested, and so Q must have been wrong about that. Later, though, the arrests happen on the low-down, and the arrested makes a secret deal with Trump and continues to work in their positions, such that the claim is unfalsifiable.

The real die-hards negotiate the little stuff in exchange for the big eventual payoff. That the payoff didn't happen or is to be delayed will shake loose a good chunk of the faithful, and quite possibly it could kill the NRM. However, if enough followers are able to lower their expectations, then the religion can grope its way to mainstream. In this case, they have the option of sucking up the lack of any master plan, while retaining the loose affiliation of radicalized cells who are willing to bring the world they long for into existence without a great leader behind the scenes to help them.

Jesus. Gadianton was reading the tea leaves:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-a-new ... s-of-qanon

How a New Religion Could Rise From the Ashes of QAnon

- Doc

[Gunnar]

Doc: "or wins the presidency"

..... cough .... somehow that presents as a very apprepo comment.

I'm sure you meant apropos, didn't you?