patrick.net

Trump has repeatedly flubbed tests of his basic understanding of domestic and foreign affairs — apparently he wasn’t aware Russia had annexed Crimea until George Stephanopoulos informed him recently. He obliterated Jeb Bush, that humbled patsy of the GOP establishment, in the debates — but Bush (if anyone had cared to listen) punctured Trump’s bully-boy promise to impose tariffs on Chinese products, correctly pointing out that such a move would certainly spark countermeasures by Beijing that could lead to a global depression. Trump wasn’t aware of that fact, or just didn’t care.

2016
Donald Trump’s Week of Misrepresentations, Exaggerations and Half-Truths

By Kyle Cheney, Isaac Arnsdorf, Daniel Lippman, Daniel Strauss and Brent Griffiths

The caring part is kind of important, if history is any guide. In April, I sat down with one of his longtime advisers, Roger Stone, who described what it was like to brief an executive whose prime attributes were supreme self-confidence and supreme impatience. “All you can do is present information and let him either assimilate it or not,” said Stone, who has known the GOP nominee for decades. “When you write something for him, keep it short and staccato. He's not going to read a 40-page white paper on the economy; zero chance of that. It's just too boring. Don't blame him; I don't like it either. So keep it simple and direct because that's the way he communicates.”

Stone argued that Trump isn’t an ignoramus — just a cut-to-the-chase decision-maker who is a lightning-quick study. But George W. Bush’s advisers, speaking to biographer Peter Baker, said that Bush’s unwillingness to ask probing, informed questions led to some of his disastrous decisions in Iraq. And during the nadir of the 2009 global economic meltdown, President Obama added a daily economic briefing to his daily national security rundown to keep tabs on the rapidly shifting metrics of crisis.

Trump’s capacity to intuitively assimilate information might render such processes useless — but there’s not a single presidential historian drawing oxygen who believes a lack of intellectual curiosity is an asset for the job.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/is-donald-trump-qualified-to-be-president-228657#ixzz4LOAdIS8X
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