Since becoming president, Donald Trump has displayed three obsessions. In all three cases, his narcissistic personality leads him to want to essentially keep up appearances, not preserve substance. First, he viscerally hates Barack Obama and wants to erase all traces of his legacy. Not a day goes by without him making an untimely outing against his predecessor. He is exceedingly frustrated to see the adulation that is given to Obama both in the United States and in the rest of the world.
His second obsession is about wealth. Continually claiming to be extremely wealthy and to be part of the club of the 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. As president, he denies Congress access to his tax returns, thus going against 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 never ceases to affirm that he knows more than all the experts, and this, in all fields. 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 with Obama's birth certificate, he repeatedly demanded that Columbia and Harvard release Obama's transcripts and asserted that Obama had been admitted to these prestigious universities only through inclusive policies towards minorities.
Very little visible on the Fordham campus, where he did his first two years of university studies, as on that of Wharton, where he finished the last two, Trump does not even have his photo in the yearbooks. However, he already claimed in 1973 and 1976 in The New York Times to be at the top of the class. He then repeated it for decades in books, magazines and on websites.
Trump's classmates never saw him as standing out intellectually. Those at Wharton remember him as essentially some kind of "pro-fascist" who had nothing great or exceptional about him. However, in 2015, he threatened to sue the two universities where he studied if they released 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 probably stems from a need to project an image of success, despite his multiple bankruptcies and the criticism that his incompetence brings to him. By valuing his IQ, he hides his insecurity.
Anyone who challenges his policies, whether it's 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 they all had very low IQs.
As President, Trump did not hesitate to denigrate his own appointed deputies, 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 only a moron.
Unheard of for an American president. He did not hesitate to repeatedly assert that his last two predecessors were not very bright, thus suggesting that he himself had a much higher intelligence. In the case of Obama, he even went so far as to say that he was “the biggest asshole”.
Trump uses his IQ as if it represented net worth. For him, IQ equals intelligence. However, this attitude is the opposite of wisdom. He does not seem to realize that, to have insight and wisdom in politics, one must also have judgment, empathy, discipline, diplomacy, discernment, good listening, open-mindedness and an 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 smart 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 he will be able to fulfill his task.
By refusing the contribution of his advisers, and even more so by replacing them with incompetent officials appointed on a temporary basis, Trump is wasting the most precious resources that would have enabled him to carry out his presidential task effectively. He is unable to understand that no one person, however brilliant, can adequately manage a modern presidency alone.
Trump would do well to meditate on the maxim of Socrates who asserted that the most reprehensible ignorance consists in “thinking that one knows what one does not 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 daily. However, this lack is even more apparent in the management of the present pandemic, as well as in the race riots.
