Idiot or Moron? The Great Debate over Trump's Intellectual Capacity

General John Kelly, current (but maybe not for long) White House chief of staff, is reported to have called his boss, the President of the United States of America, one Donald J(ackass) Trump, an "idiot." Kelly denies it, calling the reports "bullshit."
 

Rex "Big Oil" Tillerson, the former Secretary of State who Trump fired via Twitter so the whole world would get the news before Rex did, was reported to have referred to Trump as a "fucking moron." Tillerson repeatedly refused to confirm or deny saying it, a tacit confirmation that he had said it.

Which man is right?

Let's look at definitions. An idiot is:

1. Informal. an utterly foolish or senseless person:

If you think you can get elected president, you're an idiot!

2. Psychology. (no longer in technical use; considered offensive) a person of the lowest order in a former and discarded classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25.

Whereas a moron is:

1. Informal. a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment:

I wonder why they elected that narrow-minded moron to the presidency.

2. Psychology. (no longer in technical use; now considered offensive) a person of borderline intelligence in a former and discarded classification of mental retardation, having an intelligence quotient of 50 to 69.

Under the discredited psychological definitions, it is clearly worse to be an idiot than to be a moron.

Trump clearly lacks good judgment. On the other hand, he seems to have excellent shark-like instincts. Socially, politically, and in terms of the psychological manipulation of others, he is brilliant, unfortunately for us.

And while he says utterly foolish and senseless things, it is hard to conclude that he IS utterly foolish and senseless.

What he is is a pig-headed bigot, a man with a closed-mind who doesn't like to learn and who has strong prejudices about the world. Now he has U.S. government power to try and impose his beliefs about the world on the world.

But George Bush was the same. Just not as outré.

And in regard to using U.S. power to bully, that's what U.S. power has been used for since the U.S. was created in the 18th century.

Trump is rather like the Roman Emperor Nero. Or the Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Or Vlad the Impaler. He is a particularly noxious ruler of a noxious system. People who think "the problem" is Trump ignore the fundamental reality of the existence of this system. They are laboring under the false consciousness of U.S. nationalism, which blinds them to the evil reality of the system. Of course it is no accident that the Democratic Party, its political hacks, the establishment media, and the secret police agencies, ignore that reality. They are pillars of this system, and they work assiduously every day to perpetuate it.

More disappointing are their fellow travelers among the "alternative" media and putative "progressives." Useful idiots, they are. (That would be Lenin's definition of idiot.)

Shaking hands with an idiot.

Fired by a moron: Oh Boy!