Recently, Vox gleefully repeated the rumor based on innuendo (it’s no coincidence this word is Italian for suppository), that National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Trump is an “idiot” and “dope.”

Well, Trump hired McMaster, so if Vox right, what does this say about McMaster?

Vox also heard from a friend that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson referred to Trump as a “moron.” And Vox heard from a source who knew a guy who said he was sure he heard Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had formed a “suicide pact.” If any of these Trump hires gets fired, they will never invite Trump to any of their birthday parties ever again.

Nobody seems to have explained to Vox that men often heatedly call their bosses idiots, fools, and much worse, as a means of blowing off steam. They don’t mean the slurs as sober and considered judgments of the intellectual prowess of their betters. Yet Vox, and several other outlets, reported the outbursts as if they were true and meant seriously.

In other words, Vox appears over eager to believe the President’s mental acuity is substandard.

Investigate This Poll

They aren’t alone.

Disgraced FBI investigator Peter Strzok called Trump an “idiot,” got caught at it (and more), and had to be removed from the infamous Russia investigation. You remember the investigation. About how Trump and Vladimir Putin secretly poisoned vaccine supplies under orders of the lizard people, who have been driving those UFOs we’ve been hearing about. Or something.

Newsweek happily reported the results of a Quinnipiac “poll” designed with the same specifications as the quizzes in Cosmopolitan (“What kind of sex fruit are you?”). People were “asked for the first word that pops into their head” when thinking of the President.

A total of 53 people responded with the word “idiot, 44 with “liar” and 36 with “incompetent.” Another 26 people gave the response “a**hole,” while 19 respondents said “moron,” 18 said “arrogant” and 17 said “disgusting.”

Fifty-three whole people? Wow.

The New York Times saw the same poll and felt it had to explain what idiot meant. “In Greek society, the condition of idiocy was seen as peculiar and strange (a meaning that is retained in the English word ‘idiosyncratic’); thus ‘idiot’ was a term of reproach and disdain.” Who knew?

A Willful Campaign

One-time-conservative writer George Will took to television and said soberly:

He [Trump] is barely on speaking terms with the English language. I don’t think I’ve heard him complete a sentence in two years that had a subject, an object and a verb. He makes George W. Bush look like Cicero. He gets on the phone with these people, and it is awkward. It is an agonizing moment, and he doesn’t respond well.

All through the 2016 campaign, journalists (that is, Hillary supporters), academics, political operatives, commentators, Hillary herself, Never Trumpers and other professional “conservatives,” and denizens of “blue” cities told us often and loudly that Trump was a buffoon, a clown, a fool, an idiot. They weren’t just saying this. They believed it.

Early on the networks ran shots of Trump rallies, certain sure their viewers would laugh along with them. Network executives never realized the people at the rallies weren’t laughing.

Trump, that grand “idiot,” time and again outmaneuvered his opponent, soundly defeating her when every establishment voice assured us Trump would lose. Trump, the preposterous “fool,” accomplished this when he had the entire system arrayed against him. Academia, Wall Street, Conservative Inc., the media, celebrities, the bureaucracy all bested and embarrassed by Trump. Some idiot! Some fool!

Non-Impeachable Offenses

The elite has not learned its lesson. How many times since his inauguration were we told Trump’s latest “gaffe” was his last?

Trump makes a joke about needing some “good old global warming” to fight the recent cold snap, and the left wept. Twitter itself in its ill-regarded “Moments” section reported, “Trump decides climate change isn’t real because it’s cold outside.” This was followed by a score of verified users assuring us Trump’s quip was the “standard dumb person line”.

When Trump tweeted the typo “covfefe,” the smallest reaction among progressives was apoplexy. There goes that moron again!

Only one person on the left understood what the near-daily over-reactions like this meant. “Trump is playing the role of Mr. Burns, and we’re all Homer,” said Chauncy Devega of Salon.

Nobody listened to Devega. The bien pensant are as assured Trump is an “idiot” now as they are that global warming will end the world by 2005. Oops. I meant 2015.

Let the Sun Tzu Shine

It’s comforting to imagine your enemy is a mental midget. It’s insanity, unteachable ignorance, or the result of a deep psychological affliction to continue to believe he is in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

The truth is they loathe Trump because he is uncouth, because he is crude, because he doesn’t play by the old rules, because he isn’t one of us.

Trump could not have got to his position by being stupid. No man could. Sun Tzu said, “He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.” Trump’s opponents will continue to underestimate him. And Trump will continue to win most of his battles.