Seriously, How Dumb is Trump? by Robert Reich

[kentuck]

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/1821276477884940

<snip>
Trump doesn’t think he’s stupid. “Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,” he tweeted yesterday. He earlier recounted “I went to an Ivy League college … I did very well. I’m a very intelligent person.”

Wrong. One of his professors at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Finance purportedly said that he was “the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.”

<snip>
He’s always been a conman. He conned hundreds of young people and their parents into paying to attend his near worthless Trump University. He conned banks into lending him more money even after he repeatedly failed to pay them. He conned contractors to work for them and then stiffed them.

Granted, during he hasn’t always been a great conman. Had he been, his cons would have paid off.

By his own account, in 1976, when Trump was starting his career, he was worth about $200 million, much of it from his father. Today he says he’s worth some $8 billion. If he’d just put the original $200 million into an index fund and reinvested the dividends, he’d be worth $12 billion today.

[BigmanPigman]

1. Reich wrote that he has the "uncanny ability

to spot and use a person's weakness". Con man extraordinaire!

[murielm99]

2. That's what cons do.

Also, narcissists are good at it. They may be dumb about everything else, and uneducated. But they know how to exploit people.

[D_Master81]

13. BINGO

had a friend that I've since had a falling out w/ but he was extremely narcissistic and even said as much. Said he could always find ways to "work" people and situations. sounds a lot like trump.

[Skittles]

4. only stupid people

I have always found the man revolting and a complete phony

[mnmoderatedem]

3. my answer

he couldn't locate his ass with a GPS tracker.

[2naSalit]

15. That's

giving him credit for being able to operate a GPS tracker.

[Permanut]

26. Point taken..

[IggleDuer]

5. He once asked Obama to release his college transcripts...

... show us yours. Prove what you say!

[Cha]

20. Where are his tax returns?

[BlueAZure]

6. Phony Donald Trump has only two tallents

1) Schoolyard putdowns
2) Grifting

[pansypoo53219]

14. not really. he basically is a thief.

[lindysalsagal]

7. Great comments below, as well.

[askyagerz]

8. I can remember being a kid in the 80s

watching him in interviews and thinking that this guy is dumb

[bdamomma]

9. He really insults

my intelligence. I really hate how desperate everyone is to protect this POS. One thing his stupidity is not going to wear me down. That is what he wants to do wear people down.

[paleotn]

10. Getting into an Ivy and surviving isn't all that hard IF.....

you have lots of money backing you. Case in point....W Bush. That list is long so yes, money can buy you a fancy degree. Lucky for him, when he got out he went to work for daddy and then himself. That and his big bankroll once pops kick off kept him from ending up as some 3rd tier con man somewhere, in and out of prison, due to his innate stupidity.

[former9thward]

17. You are saying Ivy League college professors are bribed to give good grades?

That is a major charge. Where is the evidence this has happened?

[mr_lebowski]

18. Not 'give good grades' at the professor level, but to get in, stay in, and 'graduate', period?

Two very different things, with different 'authorities' in charge of the decisions ... just sayin' ...

[Nay]

22. This. Dumb rich kids are given 'gentleman's Cs' and passed along from one basic class

to another. They pay other students to produce term papers and even take their tests (in, say, a large Econ 201 class). It happened all the time back when Dipshit was in school (I was in college a few years after him and saw the process in a state school).

Professors are urged to pass rich kids because the school wants/needs endowments. Regular professors who wouldn't play this game were often sidelined. Professors whom the school really needed (think math geniuses, Nobel Prize winners, noted researchers, literary bigwigs, etc., were NEVER given the rich dumbshit students).

[former9thward]

24. I would love to see some actual evidence professors are letting themselves

be used that way. Very serious charges. I wonder why there has been no media repoorts exposing it?

[former9thward]

23. No, no

Professors give grades -- not some anonymous "different authorities". You are saying professors at Ivy Leagues are bribed -- or something worse -- by "rich students". I would like to see a particle of evidence behind that charge.

[mr_lebowski]

25. I am not saying that ... the person you responded to said something like that ...

But never mentioned 'grades', they said "get in, and survive" ... so to me, you gleaned a grade-fixing accusation was being leveled against profs ... when that wasn't actually said.

The profs who hand out grades are not the people at the school who do admissions, or decide to allow people to graduate.

As someone else mentioned above, there are other mechanisms really rich people can avail themselves of that will let them 'graduate' ... w/o professors themselves actually being bribed to give them unfair grades. Administrators always making sure they always get into the class w/the known-easiest teacher of a given subject, for example. They can also 'bend the rules' a bit with regards to graduation requirements, or let them take 'incompletes' in subjects 6 weeks into the courses they're failing when others only get 3 weeks normally, stuff like that.

Nobody is saying rich, but total slacking students ... are gonna graduate Summa Cum Laud or anything like that. Just 'get in, and survive to graduation'.

[paleotn]

21. No bribery necessary...

Once in, it's simply a matter of one's major and the courses one takes. My evidence is anecdotal. Trump and W are prime examples.

[Nay]

28. My discussion above only has anecdotes as well. I was in college when it would have

been a bit easier to fudge stuff -- Trump and W went to college back then, too.

When I was in school, "business" degrees were for the real dummies anyway. Lots of rich kids back then got business degrees. It's not like they were graduating with physics or chem degrees, ffs.

[thegoose]

11. Remember the 1997 movie "Traveller"

With the late, great Bill Paxton about a bunch of Irish nomads going around North Carolina and fleecing people? Hell, even 1973's "Paper Moon." Remember the bill switches in the dime stores? All you need to know is how to "read" people and then con them ten ways to Sunday. It doesn't take a like, smart brain.

That's what Dumpster has done his entire life. His New York real estate career peaked in the virulently corrupt 80s and 90s. There's no question that he's been carrying water (and laundering money) for Russia for decades.

[trof]

12. "near worthless"? Really?

How about "a total rip off"?

[2naSalit]

16. +1

[mr_lebowski]

19. SAD! You LIE! Check the reviews online!!!

They say it had 99% satisfaction! Better than HARVARD!!! Much better than that hippy Berkeley that's for sure!

Some examples:
ChristineJones1967 (10/10) raved:"Best money our family ever spent. The university's excellent instructors (who were handpicked by Mr Trump!!!) were amazing, and taught us SO MUCH, and now we don't have to go to our horrible 9-5 jobs anymore, we're our own bosses, and every month, we're making OVER $9000!!!"

MiDuNgH0 (10/10) said:"The University was a Wise Investment. Mr. Trumps lessons were INVALUABLE, now my daughter doesn't have to sew clothes in a terrible factory, in fact no-one tells her what to do, and her last monthly check almost $5000!"

They go ON AND ON like that, just look at the website!

People say it was a tremendous success, and it helped many, many people. Bigly. The Fake Media won't tell you that but look at the reviews at the website. They're tremendous! I'm very proud, very very proud. I mean ... Mr. Trump should be ... very proud!

[Permanut]

27. Dang, I think I want to go there.. n/t

[spanone]

29. i'd say, he's pretty fucking dumb.