Subject: Re: AOC’s thoughts on Taiwan
...but Trump is smart nearly all of the ways that would matter in that setting.

It occurs to me...how are you defining "intelligence"? We may be talking about two completely different things.

To me, "intelligence" is the ability to take in, process, and assimilate new information, and then adapt. The Felon is incapable of these things. He doesn't appear to figure out anything. He is as he is, and he just happens to be in the right place with the right attitudes to appeal to the rabble.

I still think that Tywin or Tyrion, or even Khaleesi would have made mincemeat out of him. He would have impulsively blundered out (probably because of some perceived slight), and been annihilated. If he had done well in that world, it would have been because he was already a round peg for a round hole. He was/is already a bully, already deceitful, already an authoritarian...if he could, he would order "off with their heads" (e.g. Mark Kelly), which would work well in Game of Thrones. But none of that is him adapting to new information; it is not intelligence. Someone like Tyrion would have strategized and torn him apart because Tyrion actually was intelligent (by the above definition). Or Tywin...Tywin won wars without actually fighting. The Felon would have been completely out of his depth.