What is Donald Trump’s IQ compared to the global average?
Trump's obsession with his intelligence
Since becoming president, Donald Trump has displayed three obsessions. In all three cases, his narcissistic personality leads him to want essentially to save appearances, and not to preserve substance. First, he viscerally hates Barack Obama and wants to erase all traces of his legacy. Hardly a day goes by without him making an untimely sortie against his predecessor. He is exceedingly frustrated to see the adulation of Obama both in the United States and around the world.
His second obsession concerns wealth. Continuously claiming to be extremely wealthy and part of the club of big billionaires, he does not want us to know the reality. So he refuses to reveal his tax returns, thus violating a rule established in 1970 for all candidates running for the American presidency. Now president, he denies Congress access to his tax returns, thus violating Congress’s right to audit.
His third obsession concerns his intelligence, his intelligence quotient, his IQ as he likes to say. According to him, he would be a real genius. Thanks to his intelligence, he over and over again asserts that he knows more than any expert in any field. Longtime Trump watchers note that his bragging about his high IQ has been a recurring theme with him for decades. He displays it as an interior decoration, a chandelier that he would have between his two ears.
This obsession had led him to question the intelligence of Barack Obama. He considered that the latter did not have the intelligence to be president. As he had done for Obama's birth certificate, he constantly demanded that Columbia and Harvard make Obama's transcripts public, in addition to claiming that Obama had been admitted to these prestigious universities only thanks to the inclusive policies towards minorities.
Hardly visible on the Fordham campus, where he did his first two years of college, like on Wharton, where he completed the last two, Trump doesn't even have his photo in the yearbooks. However, he already claimed in 1973 and 1976 in The New York Times to be a first in class. He then repeated it for decades in books, magazines and on websites.
Trump's classmates never saw him as intellectually outstanding. He is remembered by those in Wharton as essentially some sort of "pro fascist" who was nothing great or not exceptional. However, in 2015 he threatened to sue the two universities he studied at if they published his transcripts.
This obsession with being seen as the smartest actually reflects the fear of being seen as unintelligent, stupid, or wacky. This obsession with his IQ likely stems from a need to project an image of success, despite his multiple bankruptcies and criticism of his incompetence. By valuing his IQ, he conceals his insecurity.
Anyone who challenges his policies, whether a head of state like Kim Jong Un in 2017, a Republican opponent like Rick Perry or Lindsey Graham in 2016, a Democratic opponent like Joe Biden, an actor like Robert De Niro or a journalist like Mika Brzezinski, have something in common. Trump said of them all had very low IQs.
Now president, Trump did not hesitate to denigrate the deputies he himself had appointed by claiming that they lacked intelligence, that they had low IQs. When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired, he told Forbes magazine that his IQ was higher than that of everyone in his cabinet, including Tillerson. The latter, former CEO of ExxonMobil, was according to Trump a jerk.
Unheard of for an American president. He did not hesitate to assert repeatedly that his last two predecessors were not very bright, suggesting that he himself had a much higher intelligence. In Obama's case, he even went so far as to say that he was "the biggest asshole."
Trump uses his IQ as if it represents net worth. For him, QI is equivalent to intelligence. However, this attitude is the opposite of wisdom. He does not seem to realize that in order to have insight and wisdom in politics, one must also have judgment, empathy, discipline, diplomacy, discernment, good listening, openness and openness to the world, etc.
True intelligence enables a leader to surround himself with insightful and experienced staff and advisers, and to avoid intellectual isolation. A truly intelligent president resorts to dissenting opinions and is willing to hear well-meaning criticism. He knows that by listening to the experts he will learn and that the more he learns, the better able he will be to do his job.
By denying the input of his advisers, and even more by replacing them with incompetent officials appointed on a temporary basis, Trump is wasting the most precious resources that would have enabled him to effectively carry out his presidential task. He is unable to understand that no one, however brilliant, can adequately manage a modern presidency on their own.
Trump would do well to ponder Socrates' maxim that the most reprehensible ignorance is to "think you know what you don't know." Intellectual excellence requires more than intelligence, but also insight, judgment and wisdom. Trump's lack of emotional intelligence and wisdom marks his governance of the United States on a daily basis. However, this lack is reflected even more in the management of the present pandemic, as well as in the race riots.
