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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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It does seem laughable that a 100 IQ boor with generational wealth could basically be the most important person in the world for over a decade. There are tons of idiots born into money and connections. None have leveraged it like Trump. That suggests he isn’t a 100 IQ boob.

And the broader point is that when one person has had that level of success, his detractors better have similar level of success before they call him stupid. It’s like the idiots calling Musk dumb.

It does seem laughable that a 100 IQ boor with generational wealth could basically be the most important person in the world for over a decade.

Most important in the world is credit to US, not to any particular president. Most important in the country? Many kings had accomplished that without any effort simply by being heirs to a stable hereditary monarchy.

You seem to ascribe some additional moral protection to intelligence that you don't afford other virtues. So when someone is successful, it must have been intelligence? No, there are plenty of other factors, including, yes, sheer dumb being the right-shaped person at the right place in the right time.

I'll continue to call a king naked when he is naked instead of cringing from it in some performative show of humility, "well he's king, so he must have some good reason behind this, or he wouldn't be king!". Your way is just not being able to point out things about anyone famous for any reason because no one here is that famous.

You must realize there is a marked difference between being born the heir to the throne and accomplishing what Trump accomplished?

And of course there are other virtues, etc. I’m just saying you don’t get the top of the top by being an idiot.

A lot of your argument's weight hinges on obscuring "what Trump has accomplished" behind vague superlatives like "getting to the top of the top".

For the record, I don't agree that POTUS is such a height of power as you imply, either. As I said, its power is mostly the power of the US, which Trump can't take credit for. Any random tinpot dictator in a shithole country, who rules for life and at whose word countless detractors go to prison or disappear, is more "the top of the top" than Trump. I grant that you don't get there by being an idiot. You also don't get to any of the numerous unelected posts between which the power of the US government is diffused by being an idiot.

Getting to the post of POTUS while LLMs are smarter than you (this is Dase, "LLMs are smarter than X" is not the same as calling X retarded as far as I can tell of him) is not something that requires outstanding intellect. It requires mostly other things, and if you're literally a clinical idiot then it's unlikely you have those things, and most of the time a president is not going to be stupid. But it's not a requirement.