Trump, IQ, and Social Change

You are probably wondering why there is a picture of Rex Tillerson instead of Trump. Well, not everything has to be about the galoot. Except it sort of is about the shamer-in-chief, but also his Secretary Galoot, Rex. He boasted about having a higher IQ than the embattled diplomat. But Donald did the same thing much earlier in his presidency, bashing Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, calling her “low IQ mika.”

Even Rex’s latchkey children at the State Department have used the concept of IQ to bash their leader. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link to that. Something about State Department employees asserting that Trump might have a higher IQ than Tillerson, considering how the latter chooses to run the institution. Point being that Trump has re-inserted the concept of IQ back into the public consciousness, and not with benevolent intentions (not that intentions matter in the grand scheme of things).

If you look at the patterns there, Trump regularly uses shame to cow his civil servants into submission. Remember how he berated Attorney General Jeff Sessions back in July, referring to him as beleaguered?  Donald Trump uses the whip of shame on his cabinet, and for some reason, chooses to return to the old and reliable “IQ” whenever it suits him. Does he feel insecure about his intelligence? Well, for obvious reasons, yes.

I guess I’m curious if this will concept will make it into semi-regular political discourse. It’s a favored idea among conservative thinkers, or conservatives that aren’t really thinkers but subconsciously refer to pop culture psychology when they wish to construct a very convenient, in-the-moment, soon-to-be-forgotten hierarchy of some kind. Will Roy Moore conjure up an astronomically high IQ score to support his incredibly hard-right religious views, or to somehow excuse his very extensive ethical failings? Probably irrelevant at this point, for this particular politician since he doesn’t seem to need it (we’ll find out soon).

Finally, even if it swirls about the political domain, that doesn’t mean it will stay confined there. Trump has already amplified an aggressive culture. IQ might just become invigorated as an extreme right concept, used vaguely and illogically to justify all sorts of heinous crap. Or those two letters might just die with Trump. I doubt it though.