...or that he's incompetent to the point of not being able to receive, process and relay information with any degree of reliability. Pick your poison I guess.

Last time I was reprimanded for making this point on these forums, but I'll say it again:

If you think a guy with a 40+ year career in the cut-throat New York real estate world, then in in media and entertainment world, culminating in the Presidency of the USA, can't "process or transmit information", it might be you with the issue. You can mock "Art of the Deal" all you want, but it's not possible to be that "lucky".

I wouldn't call what he's doing 4d-chess by any means, but everything he does or says is filtered for his base and/or for self-preservation.

I wasn't mocking anything and do not consider him lucky.

The guy clearly has some skill sets that are useful at least to him personally.

I'm not convinced that all the falsehoods he spreads are spoken with any intention / a deep understanding of what the inaccuracies are.

AFAICT, he seems to have developed a strategy in which attention to detail, accuracy, honesty, utility, fairness, integrity, etc. simply have little bearing on his getting what he wants.

I would posit that if you spend your entire life this way, your ability to pay attention to things of true value would seriously atrophy.

He hasn't worked in real estate for 30 years. Not since Trump Taj Mahal went down in flames. He does hotel management and branding. His other ventures have also all gone down in flames with a few resulting in fraud lawsuits.

All that being said, when in the last 5 years has he displayed more than a facile understanding of anything besides women's bodies? He again suggested this week that the US could refinance it's debt like a mortgage. He has previously declared that vaccines cause autism, climate change is a hoax, health insurance costs $12 a year, you need an ID to buy groceries. He's also said a website costs $2. A lot of people claim it's his persona and not his real self but I haven't seen any evidence at all to the contrary.

>He again suggested this week that the US could refinance it's debt like a mortgage.

This reads as dumbing down the explanation of interest rates enough for the american population to understand or in other words

>>he does or says is filtered for his base and/or for self-preservation.

Per my comment, it could be but I haven't seen a shred of evidence that that's true. There isn't, in fact, any way to refinance the national debt or anything analogous to refinancing debt. In the past he's suggested we could default on some debt the way he has with his myriad failed businesses, but that would be an obvious disaster. I have never seen any public or private statements that indicate he has any understanding whatsoever beyond his nonsensical public statements. The only stuff we've seen leaked show the exact same levels of ignorance. His official actions all support the theory that he is truly an ignorant moron.

Show me any evidence to the contrary.

The “wall”. The money was only partially needed for building physical wall. The rest was electronic surveillance and deterrence. But dumbed down to the people as “the wall”. It’s been his M.O. his whole presidency

Show me any evidence. Public statements, rumors, anything that says Trump actually meant surveillance or deterrence. Because there is heaps of statements of him talking about walls meaning walls. Walls that are high and strong and can't be tunneled under or cut through. And his attempts to seize land to build on. And his leaked phone call begging President Nieto to pay for it like he said would literally happen (https://www.univision.com/univision-news/politics/transcript...) exactly the way he described it to voters. Show me anywhere that he acknowledges what percentage of illegal immigrants actually run across the desert versus using a legal border crossing. Find me any leaked statements that show anything more than the exact same facile explanations he uses in public. All I see are the same statements with more cursing.

Did you watch the address Wednesday night? And how many critical points had to be corrected afterward?

That’s fully incompetent transmition of information.

>Did you watch the address Wednesday night? And how many critical points had to be corrected afterward?

Yes. Sounds like the system is working as intended.

Do you understand the pace at which things are happening right now (much of it the administration's own fault)? It isn't "just" a virus; they are also concerned about the economy and an election and an opposition (and media) who will blow every mis-step out of proportion. It doesn't matter what Trump does, the media says it's bad. Always. Remember when he was racist for restricting flights from China early on? And right now I'd bet they don't have a plan (again, their own fault).

The press conference was a disaster, I agree. Trump looked legit ill. Based on that you determine he can't process information? Your priors mean nothing?

> Yes. Sounds like the system is working as intended.

Sure. Remember the topic though. It’s working in spite of his inability to transmit information. And it’s a lot less efficient/effective to correct information after-the-fact.

> the media says it’s bad

True, but so what? The media isn’t one guy, it’s a huge number of people and many of them pay attention to what he does. So, yes someone somewhere criticizes everything he does whether it’s deserved or not, just like Obama and every other president. BTW, you might not bring up his early handling of this. Not “a hoax” anymore, is it. We didn’t get to zero cases soon. Unfortunately, we can’t go back and correct these incorrect statements.

> Your priors mean nothing?

Ok, now I think you’re just trolling. Jesus.

Donald "Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated" Trump. The guy who said Russia would never invade Ukraine. Who called his soon-to-be convicted national security advisor in the middle of the night to ask if it was better to have a strong dollar or a weak dollar. The guy who promised a peace deal with North Korea after tearing up a durable deal with Iran. A guy who said tax cuts pay for themselves and the deficit will go down. Remember 2.5 years of infrastructure weeks?

Seriously, what topic has he shown even basic fluency? He is exceedingly capable of expressing his impatience with imperfect solutions of his predecessors and adversaries. He has less than zero capacity to even as well as any of them.

Yes but that’s the point, the news coverage should help to focus on the important details that were wrong, like will this service ever be available and when. Misusing Google in place of Alphabet is not even worth correcting someone on in a casual conversation, much less focusing articles on during a crisis.

The media is also focusing on that. “The media” isn’t one guy with time for only one thing.

There are thousands talking and writing for hours each a day. There’s going to be a lot of trivia with the meaty content.

Exactly stop with the dumb idiotic politics were in a pandemic and even both sides are coming together (setting aside the stupidity) to focus on trying to defeat this virus.

The best example of him being totally fucking clueless is when a reporter asked him if he/the WH staff will be tested after there's public evidence (a photo) of him next to the Bolsonaro aide who was later tested positive. His response, very confidently: "No, we have no symptoms whatsoever.".

Oh my fucking god... anyone who's paid 30 seconds attention to this virus knows that you may have it and not show any symptoms.

He also had no idea anyone died from the flu even though his grandfather died of flu. And thought coronavirus might be treatable with a flu vaccine. That's all stuff you learn in high school or by reading the newspaper.

> president Xi was at ground zero and then it's obvious he would catch the virus too.

It's a virus, not nuclear radiation. Fucking hell.

As for the rest of your argument, it's not coherent. I'd tell you to rephrase it, but I don't think I'd get anywhere.