Are we underestimating Trump's intellect?

[politicat]

6. Don't mistake cunning for intelligence.

It's not difficult to train a pigeon to do fairly complicated tasks, with enough specific conditioning.

Trump is almost entirely reactive. He's said this about himself, though of course he frames it as his strength. He doesn't handle strategy well. Trump has spent his entire life conditioning himself -- but not consciously. He is manipulative, but he's not introspective. He doesn't understand why or how what he does works, but he's very good at pressing buttons when those buttons produce a reward. (He gets pellets of attention, not alfalfa, but it's the same concept.) Think of his thinking like a cargo cult, not a plan, and you're much closer to what's going on in his head.