Most people agree that Donald Trump isn’t the brightest star in the constellation: Even the former president’s handpicked cabinet members – people who worked closely with him – have literally called him “stupid.”
Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Trump “acted like, and had the understanding of, a fifth- or sixth-grader,” according to veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s book, “Fear: Trump in the White House.”
Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” quotes Trump’s former economic adviser Gary Cohn as saying Trump was “dumb as shit.” And you gotta love ex-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly’s blunt description of his former boss: “He’s an idiot,” the retired Marine told a small group about Trump, Woodward reported.
Clearly, Trump isn’t an intellectual: He leaned on his family connections for admission to the University of Pennsylvania’s elite Wharton Business School. While Trump claims to be “like, really smart” and “a very stable genius,” in fact, he scraped together a “C” average at Wharton – just enough to graduate.
Still, history shows that it’s a mistake to underestimate Trump. The record shows that he’s a skillful tactician at influencing angry white mobs who fear racial diversity and America becoming a majority-minority nation. He’s demonstrated that he’s a cunning politician who’s dangerous for the Black community.
The former president’s long, racist history dates back to 1973 when the Justice Department filed a civil rights case against Trump’s real estate management company for systemic racial housing discrimination. Years later, he built a racist right-wing political base and launched his political career by perpetuating the so-called birther movement — the lie that the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, was born outside the United States, which caught fire with white supremacists.
In his political rise to power, Trump sent multiple dog whistles to signal his support of white supremacy – most infamously when he endorsed, by refusing to condemn, the white nationalists who led the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. that authorities linked to three deaths.
Research suggests that Trump’s dog whistles inspire actual violence. According to The Washington Post, counties that hosted Trump campaign rallies in 2016 saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes.
Racial and ethnic hate crimes increased the day after Trump’s election victory. By 2020, at least 54 criminal cases involved suspects who said Trump inspired their violent acts, threats of violence or alleged assaults, an ABC News study found.
Even In 2024, as we inch ever closer to the election, Trump continues to defend white supremacists.
“Charlottesville was a little peanut and was nothing compared — and the hate wasn’t the kind of hate that you have here. This is tremendous hate,” he said last week, comparing the white nationalist rally to the pro-Palestinian student protests on college campuses.
If re-elected, Trump vows to support the right wing’s war on so-called “anti-white” racism. The movement targeting DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives is already gaining momentum and could skyrocket under a second Trump administration.
“I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country, and that can’t be allowed either,” Trump told TIME when asked about his supporters who believe anti-white racism is a bigger problem than anti-Black racism.
Trump is no bookworm, but don’t let that fool you. He’s dangerous.