I don’t think he really is that stupid (or at least used to be, IDK how much of his intellect he has left given the decline we’ve been seeing lately). What he is, is extremely intellectually lazy. He believes that he can make good decisions by “instinct”, without ever taking some time to think about it, do some research or consulting experts. He believes that this is what being intelligent is. He just says and does whatever feels good at the time, thinking that being “so smart” means he doesn’t need to do any work at all to make good decisions. And whenever whatever he said was inevitably revealed as false or stupid, only then he will actually make an intellectual effort to bullshit and manipulate his way out of it. And this ability to perform the mental gymnastics to keep himself in denial over his incompetence is something that he has become outstandingly good at. His followers are just people who buy into those mental gymnastics.
I don’t think he really is that stupid (or at least used to be, IDK how much of his intellect he has left given the decline we’ve been seeing lately). What he is, is extremely intellectually lazy. He believes that he can make good decisions by “instinct”, without ever taking some time to think about it, do some research or consulting experts. He believes that this is what being intelligent is. He just says and does whatever feels good at the time, thinking that being “so smart” means he doesn’t need to do any work at all to make good decisions. And whenever whatever he said was inevitably revealed as false or stupid, only then he will actually make an intellectual effort to bullshit and manipulate his way out of it. And this ability to perform the mental gymnastics to keep himself in denial over his incompetence is something that he has become outstandingly good at. His followers are just people who buy into those mental gymnastics.