Who can self-identify as a “stable genius?” Einstein never did. Da Vinci? Jesus Christ? Perhaps, if we identify “genius” with IQ, we can call certain gifted people geniuses. I have known individuals with extremely high IQ’s. Two of them committed suicide in their twenties. In fact, they were brothers; and one of them was a friend. Unfortunately, immaturity overshadowed his intellectual gifts. Those native abilities gained him no wisdom or ability to navigate in society.

We use the word “genius” in different ways. Sometimes it refers to ability, as was the case with my friend. At other times, it acknowledges achievement. In the first case, we are bearing witness to an extraordinary ability to memorize, to calculate, or to learn. My friend could pass an entire semester in college without opening a textbook and still ace the finals with just one night of cramming. But he achieved nothing in a life that ended too abruptly. I could not have predicted his suicide, but its premise overshadowed many of our arguments. While he bragged about his prowess, I accused him of wasting his talents—for he gained nothing from his studies. At the time, I knew less about wisdom than I do now, but could readily see that nothing he learned seemed to mean anything to him personally. In fact, he believed “he knew it all.” But, in truth, the only knowledge worth having is the extent of one’s personal ignorance. And that ignorance or knowing what we do not know, is the beginning of wisdom.

President Trump has called himself “a stable genius.” His wealth, for example, does evidence certain abilities: he has schemed to build a fortune on what he coins “opm,” that is, “other people’s money.” He has scammed banks and debtors out of millions of dollars in bankruptcy courts. He keeps hidden his tax returns to suppress comparison with his various financial statements and his justification for dodging eight years of Federal taxes. He has used the legal system to sue adversaries and to outlast plaintiffs unable to support extended court battles. Also, he has succeeded in using his reality show stardom and tabloid celebrity status to create a unique brand that is captured in the pseudonym “the Donald.” Like my long-departed friend, he can be “full of himself” over his abilities. But what he might term achievements are empty of any value. For the acquisition of money, fame, and power are of no more value than maxing a college exam—unless contributory to personal character and the welfare of others.

I suppose our President would say that my college friend was an “unstable” genius because of his suicide. The President, by contrast, calls himself “a stable genius,” perhaps to convince Americans that his rage, ever-changeable moods, and irrational whims are not the erratic behavior of an emotionally disturbed or neurologically handicapped person. Granted, he may be right. Nevertheless, such behavior does not exemplify emotional maturity.

But, for many Americans, neither our President’s ability/achievements, nor his stability should be questioned. His claim of “stable genius” is either accepted as fact or as a flippant expression designed to annoy his detractors. Often, when his statements are ridiculed, he retorts that he was joking. In other words, what “fake news” maligned as offensive, absurd, or untrue is not to be taken seriously. The joke is on his accusers. Donald Trump, then, is more authentic than his predecessors, for he is who he is and not the pretend politician who mirrors the norms of predecessors. But how do we assess his authenticity when he squints into the teleprompter to deliver a “normal” Presidential address? He seems stiff and uncomfortable in such instances. Likewise, he appears uneasy and even inappropriate in comforting victims of natural disaster. His words and body language make no connection with their suffering, making him appear remote and unfeeling. By contrast, he is very animated and spontaneous when railing against the press, the Democrats, or any and all critics of his policies or actions. Maybe his supposed “stability” is really nothing more than the consistency of this behavior. In the same vein, his “genius” is simply the ability to reframe norm-breaking behavior into an expression of his authenticity. And that reframing is his brand. His “genius” achievement is the success of that brand. It should not be surprising that “winning” is everything to Donald Trump. It is both the consistent motivation behind most of his actions and the justification for his claim to genius status. It conflates “stable genius” with “winning” and his self-branding as “the Donald.”

A major characteristic of the Trump brand is rule breaking. Crippling the EPA, CFPB, HUD, USDA and violating laws governing asylum, equal protection, campaign finance, obstruction of justice and ignoring Constitutional provisions relating to emoluments and to Article 1 provisions are all par for the course. None of these actions were previewed to voters in 2016. Nor were Americans provided any insight into what he would do with the Department of the Interior, the Department of Education, or the State Department. Would they have agreed to releasing natural parks to oil drilling, to eliminating the Clean Power Act along with numerous clean air and water regulations, to reducing funding for education to support special needs, school lunches, or teachers’ salary, and to eliminating foreign aid to many countries while reducing State Department staffing and leaving many ambassador positions vacant? All this rule breaking is framed as “the Donald” winning his war against the deep state, that is, his mythical windmill. But his real enemy appears to be American institutions.

Nevertheless, the President is an unabashed advocate for his brand of winning. His biggest self-proclaimed “win” is the economy. He inherited an economy from the Obama Administration that had reduced unemployment by 43% (from 7.6% to 3.7%) while his “greatest unemployment rate in history” further reduced that rate by .14% (from 3.7% to 3.3%). * The impetus for this success, he claims, is the passage of his signature tax cut legislation. That legislation heralded in a significant jump in the stock market with its reduction in the corporate tax rate and protection of the carry-interest provision. That immediate jump has since levelled off as corporations initially invested in stock buybacks rather than longer term investments in growth. Meanwhile, the Federal deficit spending is growing to the 1 trillion-dollar level. In other words, President Trump inherited an economy that had recovered from its greatest recession in history and a 1 trillion-dollar deficit. But his current budget restores that pre-recession deficit level. His only “achievement” here is once again his branding. The fiscal reality is a time bomb that could bring down the global economy in its wake.

No President succeeds with every decision or policy. But most never attempt to act alone. Lincoln even included political opponents in his Administration—as did Obama. For these Presidents could easily disregard the opposition of former adversaries because they valued their advice. Franklin Roosevelt so valued the input of Francis Perkins that he kept her in strategic positions throughout his four Administrations despite her gender. (I believe he was the first President to put a woman in charge of a department with many male direct subordinates.) Reagan famously sought the advice of Tip O’Neal, the Democratic Speaker of the House. Each of these Presidents admitted to serious failings during their terms, but each had historic successes. Their genius was in eliciting the contribution of others to rise above their personal limitations. The compassion they showed both in smiles and tears endeared them to a grateful nation. But neither called themselves stable geniuses. They were smart enough to know why.

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* These rates are quoted from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics for January 2009, January 2017, and August 2019, respectively.