It’s not often that I sympathize with Donald Trump. Whatever happens to him, he brings upon himself. But think for a minute how hard it is to be him. You always hear about the smartest person in the room and sometimes they have it rough. That person is someone who is looking for an answer when they don’t always have one. They need to seem smart all the time, even when they want to be stupid. When you’re the dumbest person in the room, it must be hard to try and keep hiding your stupidity, even when you know everyone around you thinks you’re incompetent.
Knowing that Donald Trump was sitting in the front row of the public section listening to the arguments, this idea came to me while listening to the Supreme Court’s oral argument on birthright citizenship. He stayed only for an hour. It must have been hard to hear words he didn’t know the meaning of, or had no idea about cited precedent, relevant case law, or American history. The saying, “If you don’t know, ask someone better,” doesn’t apply to the dumb man because when he opens his mouth, he proves that there is such a thing as a dumb question. Being the dumbest person in the room and having the biggest ego means you constantly have to change the subject or belittle those around you to make them look less than you.
There is no shame in being the dumbest person in a room full of Supreme Court justices, constitutional scholars, lawyers and media analysts, as Trump was on the Supreme Court. Trump’s problem is that he’s the dumbest person in any room he walks into. Here are some examples.
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White House, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Cabinet Room is located in the West Wing adjacent to the Oval Office and has served as the primary meeting place for Cabinet-level discussions since the early 20th century. The room overlooks the Rose Garden and has long mahogany tables with carved chairs for each cabinet position, with the president seated in the center. While every cabinet member is arguably a subordinate broker, willing to do Trump’s bidding on every issue, they all got there because they’re smarter than Trump, even though they’re willing to trade their status for power and money. Every cabinet meeting begins with each member praising and praising Donald Trump. Trump has trained them to never contradict him in public while he rambles on about things he knows nothing about.
White House, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The White House Situation Room is located in the West Wing, on the ground floor, directly below the Oval Office. It is not a single room but a secure complex of rooms with conference space and briefing rooms. It was created after the Bay of Pigs attack in 1961, when President Kennedy realized that the White House lacked a centralized, real-time intelligence hub.
The Situation Room serves as the President’s command and information center on national security matters. Its core functions include: real-time intelligence surveillance from military, diplomatic and intelligence agencies, crisis management including war, terrorist attacks and natural disasters, and secure communications with the Pentagon, CIA, foreign leaders and military commanders. The room hosts high-level decision-making meetings involving the President, Vice President, National Security Council and senior advisers. Everyone invited to the Situation Room is there because of a certain expertise in the topic at hand, except for the person hosting the meeting, who is the dumbest person in the room. It might not be so bad if you have the ability to listen and absorb information from others. These are not his spiritual endowments; He likes to talk. If you ask how the Iran war got so mismanaged, it’s because the dumbest person in the room is making the decisions.
White House, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Oval Office is the president’s private office, not a public meeting hall, so who visits it is strictly controlled. Access signals status, belief, or official purpose. Routine visitors include vice presidents, chiefs of staff, national security advisers, senior White House aides, and cabinet members, usually on a one-on-one basis rather than in groups. Photo-ops for the signing of the bill are also organized at the Oval, which can include people from all walks of life, including children. They are all smarter than the president. Everyone else knows enough to not lie when people know you’re lying. No one around him is willing to tell Trump that he is the emperor without clothes.
By Kevin McCarthy, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Trump often finds himself in the Mar-a-Lago dining room or clubhouse. This is the place where he can come closest to relaxation. His only obligation is not to look smart, but to be funny. All criticisms aside, Trump can actually be funny, and he’s good at holding court, if you don’t mind that everyone around him will sooner or later become a joke. When his jokes are over, he might show you some classified information or share a top-secret plan, all to make himself seem smarter.
Finally, there’s Donald Trump’s bedroom. I am not comparing Trump’s intelligence to that of his wife Melania. There is no need because Melanie is smart enough not to share her bedroom. On the one hand, when Trump is alone in his bedroom, posting on Truth Social, he’s finally the smartest person in the room. On the other hand, he’s still the dumbest person there, since he’s the only one present.
The next time you see Trump in a room, any room, scan it and ask yourself, is there anyone more stupid than Donald Trump? keep aside political differences and partisanship; It will help if you listen to Donald Trump when you are making a decision. You will know.
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This post was Previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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Photo by History in HD on Unsplash
