"My supporters are the smartest, strongest, most hard working and most loyal that we have seen in our countries history."
Needless to say, there is no evidence to support any of that. There certainly are some facts which disprove at least part of it. I can't address their strength, work ethic or loyalty. (They do seem loyal, but again there's no basis for Trump's claim. Are they more loyal than supporters of Reagan, JFK or George Washington? Nobody knows.) But are they the "smartest"?
Well, not exactly, in the sense that the opposite is true, per exit poll data. Uneducated white people were more likely to vote for Trump than any other candidate in the history of the demographic data. The factor that best predicts a Trump voter is that they are white and uneducated, as exemplified by Sean Hannity. Trump won that group by 39 points.
This is not strictly a Trump phenomenon, although he represents its apotheosis. The Democrats have been losing support among that group in election after election. In 2008 they lost that demographic by 18 points, and that margin increased to 25 points in 2012. The Dems have simply found no way to appeal to that demographic, which they used to win when they had firm and significant union support.
The actual voter data confirms (1) The more educated an area, the less likely they were to vote for Trump; (2) The most educated areas were far less likely to vote for Trump than for Romney.
And let's face it, the fact that Trump's Tweets are nearly illiterate, in addition to all of their other problems, makes it pretty clear that his base doesn't care about any fancy book l'arnin'.
My only beef with what you wrote is equating smart with educated. I have known some very intelligent people who had nothing but a high school education, and I have known some less than intelligent people who have a college degree.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I know people who have multiple college degrees in business, philosophy, marketing and other fields. But when it comes to plain old American smarts and know-how, most of them are dumb as a box of rocks.
DeleteCan you please describe to me what "plain old American smarts and know-how" is? I would really like to know.
DeleteThere is a correlation. It is not one-to-one, obviously. Bill Gates, for example, with his perfect or nearly perfect SAT scores, is a college drop out.
Deleteplaygroundpsychotic - if you don't know what it is, you probably don't have it.
DeleteSo some made up virtue that you like to apply to yourself?
Delete“His [Thomas Edison] method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 per cent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense. In view of this, the truly prodigious amount of his actual accomplishments is little short of a miracle.”
― Nikola Tesla, some worthless immigrant
How can you tell that they are very intelligent?
ReplyDeleteTo answer Tanner's question, 'intelligence' is a measure of the overall knowledge of a person, taking into account formal knowledge but also allowing for life experience type knowledge and being able to use this information to manipulate one's own environment.
ReplyDeleteWhile admitting that the average IQ test is nothing but a snapshot of the current moment the test is being administered, I read a report (I think it was on CNN) that said Donald Trump's IQ is around 152. That's Mensa level.
Scoop's comment, "The actual voter data confirms (1) The more educated an area, the less likely they were to vote for Trump;" doesn't make a lot of sense, when one looks at the voting map, which shows a nation that was 95% red, unless you believe that 95% of the country consists of 'a bunch of dumb hicks' and the 'intelligent' people all live in CA, MI and NY, which voted almost all blue.
The idea that the 'lesser educated' people were the ones who voted for Trump is currently being blown out of the water by the primary results happening recently, showing a definite turn toward red, giving the Dems something to be very concerned about in the Mid-Terms.
Real Life results vs. opinion polls.
Gent. Maybe you should actually read the links before spouting your opinions. I don't know whether my statement makes sense or not, but it is completely accurate, and it is not based on opinion polls, but on actual voter results. 538 simply looked at the census data by statistical area to see what the education levels were, then looked to see how they voted. Nothing but raw facts. The more educated an area, the less likely to vote for Trump.
DeleteHowever, it should be noted that the demographic breakdowns in the polls also support that same conclusions. Trump won by 39 points among uneducated whites.
All the evidence points in exactly the same direction.
Now, does education perfectly mirror intellect? No. But we don't have everyone's IQ tests, so we need a surrogate measurement.
As for Trump's intellect. Well, he and I went to Fordham together, and he was reported to be a C+ student. When he transferred to Wharton, he achieved no academic honors. (All of the records from his graduation ceremony are available online. The Dean's List was also available. It listed the top 56 students and Trump did not make it.) Years before he became a political candidate, one of his professors at Penn pointed out that, “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.” As for his classmates, almost none of them remember him at all. Of the first 13 graduates from the 1968 class tracked down by the Daily Pennsylvanian, only one even remembered him!
On the face of it, voting for Trump and against your own interests (unless you're rich as shit) shows a lack of intelligence. Or it shows intelligent masochism.
ReplyDelete