If we were to place all of the smartest people in the world on a stage, Trump would be sitting (angrily I'm sure) in the audience. I do not think that Trump is an extraordinarily smart man. In fact, I wouldn't even consider him an ordinarily smart man. However, to call him an idiot would somehow diminish all of the harmful things he has done. To call Trump an idiot is to take away from how dangerous he truly is. To be clear, he is not dangerous because of his status, or his power, or even his money. He is dangerous because of his hate. If all of the hostility that man carries isn't enough, he holds alongside him a troop of people as equally, if not more so, hateful than he is. What is more dangerous than an old bigot you ask? An old bigot who is less intelligent than his supervisors. There is something much more daunting about an old man who can not make decisions for himself.

Often the criticisms I see of Trump and his administration center around his personal intelligence, capability, and shortcomings. Very rarely do I see the same attacks on the people guiding him, supporting him, or enabling him. Although I think Trump is a vile human being, I think he is often a distraction. At the end of the day, Trump cannot pass legislation by himself, he cannot fight wars on his own, and he can't run this country into the ground by his lonesome (granted I believe he wishes he could). To be completely transparent I think the latter action has been happening for decades. I think we have made, as a country, some very very poor decisions that have led us here. Although I think we are seeing a cascade of events that have been placed like dominos by our democracy, my focus is on the current situation.

So where does that leave us? In wildfires that our president blames on poor use of controlled deforestation while simultaneously cutting funding to conservation programs? In the potential wake of empty and careless threats of nuclear warfare? In states with steadily deteriorating infrastructure and education? In hospitals that we cannot pay bills for because our healthcare has slowly been torn from us?

It is important to remember that there are, unfortunately, people with much worse intentions than Trump. There are people working every day to mold the country into what works best for them. We are so often distracted that we forget that one family holds 40% of the wealth in this country, that our economy is disenfranchising a large majority of us, and that innocent people are being killed every day. We are blind to the lives we are destroying in this country and others. We are so caught up in whatever Trump is doing we don't realize that there are systematic problems our representatives avoid fixing like solutions are a plague. I think that there are many things wrong with this country, far beyond nepotism and narcissism. One of them is our inability as a society to hold all folks accountable.

Trump is not an idiot. He is an entitled man who was born into wealth and fortune. He is a predatory man that has had to do little by himself for his entire existence. I think he is a puppet, being moved by much more malicious hands than his own.