I applaud your conscientiousness in clarifying that Trump is only "retarded" in the metaphorical sense. This is absolutely correct. If you were speaking literally, you'd have to use the words "narcissistic" and "demented".
Jeff, I must object strongly to Occam's Retard. Because you are trying to contrast it to Occam's Razor, Occam's Moron is far more appropriate because the Greek word mōros literally means dull.
And is less difficult to explain to people who aren’t familiar with Jeff’s work:
: Hey I just read this great piece by this comic/political writer Jeff Maurer who I subscribe to in Substack. He says Trump operates on the principle of Occum’s Retard, and —-
He said what?!!! Retard!!!???!!!
No that’s not the point —-
But he said retard!!
Well he used that term cause he thinks it should be brought back—-
I'm jealous of "Occam's Retard." It's brilliant. It takes into account Trump's lizard brain inability to understand diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. Maybe he's a brilliant negotiator when it comes to NYC real estate, but that's because other NYC real estate developers have the same mindset of Trump. He simply can not fathom that different people have different goals, motivations, values, etc.
Part of the reason for this tendency is that the self-proclaimed Smartest Guys in the Room got beaten by Trump twice, and at least subconsciously they think that if Trump is actually a nefarious schemer rather a malevolent Chance the Gardener it somehow means that they're not overpromoted and overcredentialed time-servers who aren't nearly as smart as they think they are.
I thought after 5 days of his first presidency that the thought behind most of his decisions is his gut and his ego. I have yet to be proven wrong on any of that.
I have no idea why people on both sides have thought anything different.
The most fitting description I've read about Trump was on this very blog in 2025.
"Trump is not just the dog who caught the car, he’s the dog who caught the car and somehow ended up driving. And at this point, he’s gnawing on the steering wheel and smashing buttons with his paws, hoping that everything will somehow work out".
1. Like Jeff suggests, it's more reassuring to believe there's some kind of nefarious plan afoot rather than, well, he's just a capricious bumblefuck who latches onto the last idea he heard and refuses to let it go no matter how terrible it ends up being.
2. Both the right and the left, for different reasons, need to view Trump as an unstoppable juggernaut. The right have, of course, gone too far and sunk too much into this cretin to just admit that he's not their God-Sent-Saviour but a bumbling fuckwit who just does whatever he thinks will feel good no matter how much it hurts them and himself, and so will naturally try and claim there's a big 4D chess strategy going on or that he's doing it all deliberately to (say it with me folks!) Own The Libs rather than admit it to themselves or others. But the Left also need him as their boogeyman, and the boogeyman's a lot scarier if he's got a Big Evil Plan that needs to be stopped rather than he's Just A Fucking Moron Who Fucks Up Everything He Tries Eventually.
3. On the left, I kind of think there's also a weird bit of copium involved as well in some cases. A lot of people on the left, to be frank, have kind of wrapped a lot of their self-identity around being the Smartest Person In The Room. And yet the supposed Smartest People In The Room keep getting beaten by quite possibly the Dumbest Man Ever To Run For President, and seem to only manage to win when he manages to keep fucking things up to such a degree where it can't be ignored anymore and they seem like the better option by default. This simple fact naturally calls into question exactly how smart / right about things they actually are, but humility and self-reflection are a lot harder than deciding that no, actually, turns out The Dumbest Man Ever To Run For President is actually a lot smarter than he looks, actually.
The left didn’t need to view him this way, the progressives want to view this way because it makes their own objectives easier to reach in terms of taking control of the Democratic Party.
The other thing is that Trump’s gut is very good for reality TV and spectacle, you can’t just take the fact that he’s stupid and then ignore what he says, and in his first term early on the Democrats being overly serious about everything he said was also a mistake. Appropriate response name was to treat what he said as a joke. Like is this guy serious that he thinks that’s a good idea, maybe crack a joker to edit it, and then move onto the actual way things work and real decision-making. Hook a bit of fun at him without focusing too much on it so that there isn’t any way for him to write into something to make it a bigger spectacle since the comeback would be “wait. You’re still talking about this?”
The perfect person for this, but the Democrats would have been Al Franken, but they got caught up in their “Me Too” movement and cannibalized him.
At this point, it’s too late for that. He’s too firmly entrenched as a big deal everywhere to have this approach work. This is what should’ve been done right away when he was first elected in his first term. Democratic instead played into his reality TV got instincts perfectly and allowed the spectacle to get bigger and bigger until it’s entrenched itself.
You have to be realistic about what Trump is. He goes with his gut and so he is a moron about policy, but he does have things that he’s good at which you need to take it into your account or you play right into his hands. Democrats were used to playing politics and were unprepared for someone playing reality TV.
This is basically what happened with the woke stuff as well,by treating those crazy demands as something for serious consideration, and even in some cases capitulating to it, they ended up attaching it to their party brand.
Is your son enjoying the Harry Potter books or movies? Or are you?
I'm 66 years old and stumbled across the Harry Potter audio books on my Libby audio app and thought well why not? Wooo! They're a wonderful audio experience! Stephen Fry is one of the most talented narrators in the business. Good writing too!
I resisted the idea of calling Trump a Russian asset or a traitor etc. I remembered how much it annoyed me when people made over the top criticisms of Obama because of some statement or policy that they didn't like. But at a certain point, the evidence is overwhelming. Trump is loyal to Russia. He is disloyal to America, to democracy, and to the free world. He backs dictators from Asia and Europe. Like Hitler and Stalin and similar parties, he only responds to power. I doubt there is any melodramatic blackmail involved. I think it's just money. Very possibly illegal arrangements, but since urination is not involved, no one will give a shit. White collar crime has seemingly been decriminalized. The tariffs? My God. Yes the SC struck them down, but he probably made millions in crypto payoffs and no one went to jail. In New-merica you can rob dumbasses blind if you keep 'em entertained.
I hope the Constitutional process will endure. We got two more years to muddle through.
It’s pretty clear nothing he is promising right now has any real path to reality. He just wants to flood the zone with enough bullshit in the next four weeks to muddle enough previous Trump voter brains.
- no income tax!
- free money for every voter!
- energy ceasefire!
- diesel prices are solved because Russia helped us!
It’s the abusive partner who realized they may have gone too far (ah shit now both eyes are black and we’re hosting thanksgiving this weekend!) so now it’s time to say and do anything to keep the broad from leaving.
JM: He's just hurt or betrayed too many groups. Farmers, ranchers, Hispanics, working people, truck drivers etc. Saying "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" too much it eventually stops working.....
GMTA: Back in 2016, Josh Marshall came up with Trump’s Razor: “ascertain the stupidest possible scenario that can be reconciled with the available facts” and that answer is likely correct.
Tariffs aren't inherently wrong. China almost explicitly considers itself in an economic Cold War with us, just as Japan did back in the 1980s. (And China is now starting to crack around the edges, just as Japan did, but it's a slow process.) If you want arguments for tariffs from the educated and credentialed instead, look at the recent actions of France and Germany in making it easier to bar China altogether from some European markets, which is even more protectionist than tariffs. China flooding Europe with cheap stuff has been eroding the industrial base of France and Germany, and frankly, meaningful jobs are far more central to human happiness than cheap stuff. Jobs were already disappearing due to automation and now to A.I., and I think we all know what the unemployment rate was in Weimar Germany. I'm not saying Trump is who we should have in charge of this, but he won because the choice wasn't between him and competent people on this issue, but between incompetently dealing with this issue and competently ignoring it, as was standard before 2016. Trump is if nothing else excellent at opportunism.
As for the oil stuff, I would quote a group of energy industry bloggers who write as "Doomberg":
"you can’t win a commodities sanctions war by targeting volumes—price is the only way. By flooding the world with cheap energy, prices would crash well below Russian and Iranian breakeven costs, turning a steady source of revenue into a penalizing use of funds. Russia’s current federal budget is based on an assumption of $60 per barrel oil. How would it fare at $20? At $15? Certainly much worse than it is at $100."
I told people in past comment threads and in real life that Project 2025 was going be implemented and received a lot of 🫸 push back. "Oh, he wouldn't go that far! That's just aspirational."
When people tell you who they are, you should believe them. Somebody smarter than me said that somewhere.....
“Occam’s retard is the principle that when presented with a Trump action that has multiple explanations, the dumbest explanation is the most likely one.”
Trump has historically been able to act something like shrewdly, but I'm not sure he can act non-maliciously except by accident. Hanlon's Razor doesn't apply to someone capable of only selfish action.
Trump 2.0: the presidential administration so corrupt it turned Teapot Dome into a unit of measurement
I applaud your conscientiousness in clarifying that Trump is only "retarded" in the metaphorical sense. This is absolutely correct. If you were speaking literally, you'd have to use the words "narcissistic" and "demented".
I think we could pile in “pathologically incapable of admitting to being wrong about anything”.
Agreed, although "narcissistic" arguably has that one covered.
(My understanding is it's more like "pathologically incapable of tolerating criticism", but close enough!)
Jeff, I must object strongly to Occam's Retard. Because you are trying to contrast it to Occam's Razor, Occam's Moron is far more appropriate because the Greek word mōros literally means dull.
And is less difficult to explain to people who aren’t familiar with Jeff’s work:
: Hey I just read this great piece by this comic/political writer Jeff Maurer who I subscribe to in Substack. He says Trump operates on the principle of Occum’s Retard, and —-
He said what?!!! Retard!!!???!!!
No that’s not the point —-
But he said retard!!
Well he used that term cause he thinks it should be brought back—-
Really.
Yeah, never mind.
I'm jealous of "Occam's Retard." It's brilliant. It takes into account Trump's lizard brain inability to understand diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. Maybe he's a brilliant negotiator when it comes to NYC real estate, but that's because other NYC real estate developers have the same mindset of Trump. He simply can not fathom that different people have different goals, motivations, values, etc.
Part of the reason for this tendency is that the self-proclaimed Smartest Guys in the Room got beaten by Trump twice, and at least subconsciously they think that if Trump is actually a nefarious schemer rather a malevolent Chance the Gardener it somehow means that they're not overpromoted and overcredentialed time-servers who aren't nearly as smart as they think they are.
Excellent
I thought after 5 days of his first presidency that the thought behind most of his decisions is his gut and his ego. I have yet to be proven wrong on any of that.
I have no idea why people on both sides have thought anything different.
The most fitting description I've read about Trump was on this very blog in 2025.
"Trump is not just the dog who caught the car, he’s the dog who caught the car and somehow ended up driving. And at this point, he’s gnawing on the steering wheel and smashing buttons with his paws, hoping that everything will somehow work out".
I suspect a few reasons:
1. Like Jeff suggests, it's more reassuring to believe there's some kind of nefarious plan afoot rather than, well, he's just a capricious bumblefuck who latches onto the last idea he heard and refuses to let it go no matter how terrible it ends up being.
2. Both the right and the left, for different reasons, need to view Trump as an unstoppable juggernaut. The right have, of course, gone too far and sunk too much into this cretin to just admit that he's not their God-Sent-Saviour but a bumbling fuckwit who just does whatever he thinks will feel good no matter how much it hurts them and himself, and so will naturally try and claim there's a big 4D chess strategy going on or that he's doing it all deliberately to (say it with me folks!) Own The Libs rather than admit it to themselves or others. But the Left also need him as their boogeyman, and the boogeyman's a lot scarier if he's got a Big Evil Plan that needs to be stopped rather than he's Just A Fucking Moron Who Fucks Up Everything He Tries Eventually.
3. On the left, I kind of think there's also a weird bit of copium involved as well in some cases. A lot of people on the left, to be frank, have kind of wrapped a lot of their self-identity around being the Smartest Person In The Room. And yet the supposed Smartest People In The Room keep getting beaten by quite possibly the Dumbest Man Ever To Run For President, and seem to only manage to win when he manages to keep fucking things up to such a degree where it can't be ignored anymore and they seem like the better option by default. This simple fact naturally calls into question exactly how smart / right about things they actually are, but humility and self-reflection are a lot harder than deciding that no, actually, turns out The Dumbest Man Ever To Run For President is actually a lot smarter than he looks, actually.
The left didn’t need to view him this way, the progressives want to view this way because it makes their own objectives easier to reach in terms of taking control of the Democratic Party.
The other thing is that Trump’s gut is very good for reality TV and spectacle, you can’t just take the fact that he’s stupid and then ignore what he says, and in his first term early on the Democrats being overly serious about everything he said was also a mistake. Appropriate response name was to treat what he said as a joke. Like is this guy serious that he thinks that’s a good idea, maybe crack a joker to edit it, and then move onto the actual way things work and real decision-making. Hook a bit of fun at him without focusing too much on it so that there isn’t any way for him to write into something to make it a bigger spectacle since the comeback would be “wait. You’re still talking about this?”
The perfect person for this, but the Democrats would have been Al Franken, but they got caught up in their “Me Too” movement and cannibalized him.
At this point, it’s too late for that. He’s too firmly entrenched as a big deal everywhere to have this approach work. This is what should’ve been done right away when he was first elected in his first term. Democratic instead played into his reality TV got instincts perfectly and allowed the spectacle to get bigger and bigger until it’s entrenched itself.
You have to be realistic about what Trump is. He goes with his gut and so he is a moron about policy, but he does have things that he’s good at which you need to take it into your account or you play right into his hands. Democrats were used to playing politics and were unprepared for someone playing reality TV.
This is basically what happened with the woke stuff as well,by treating those crazy demands as something for serious consideration, and even in some cases capitulating to it, they ended up attaching it to their party brand.
Funny you should mention Quidditch.
Is your son enjoying the Harry Potter books or movies? Or are you?
I'm 66 years old and stumbled across the Harry Potter audio books on my Libby audio app and thought well why not? Wooo! They're a wonderful audio experience! Stephen Fry is one of the most talented narrators in the business. Good writing too!
Oh, sorry to get off topic.....
As Obama once said "My opinion has evolved."
I resisted the idea of calling Trump a Russian asset or a traitor etc. I remembered how much it annoyed me when people made over the top criticisms of Obama because of some statement or policy that they didn't like. But at a certain point, the evidence is overwhelming. Trump is loyal to Russia. He is disloyal to America, to democracy, and to the free world. He backs dictators from Asia and Europe. Like Hitler and Stalin and similar parties, he only responds to power. I doubt there is any melodramatic blackmail involved. I think it's just money. Very possibly illegal arrangements, but since urination is not involved, no one will give a shit. White collar crime has seemingly been decriminalized. The tariffs? My God. Yes the SC struck them down, but he probably made millions in crypto payoffs and no one went to jail. In New-merica you can rob dumbasses blind if you keep 'em entertained.
I hope the Constitutional process will endure. We got two more years to muddle through.
A new Congress would sure help.
It’s pretty clear nothing he is promising right now has any real path to reality. He just wants to flood the zone with enough bullshit in the next four weeks to muddle enough previous Trump voter brains.
- no income tax!
- free money for every voter!
- energy ceasefire!
- diesel prices are solved because Russia helped us!
It’s the abusive partner who realized they may have gone too far (ah shit now both eyes are black and we’re hosting thanksgiving this weekend!) so now it’s time to say and do anything to keep the broad from leaving.
JM: He's just hurt or betrayed too many groups. Farmers, ranchers, Hispanics, working people, truck drivers etc. Saying "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" too much it eventually stops working.....
GMTA: Back in 2016, Josh Marshall came up with Trump’s Razor: “ascertain the stupidest possible scenario that can be reconciled with the available facts” and that answer is likely correct.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-scythian-slice-of-trump-s-razor
Short, succinct and true! Well done Jeff! Trump is the bull in the china shop, and stuff be breaking because...that's what bulls do.....
I support rehabilitating the word “retard” from the woke dungeon. This is what they took from us.
Tariffs aren't inherently wrong. China almost explicitly considers itself in an economic Cold War with us, just as Japan did back in the 1980s. (And China is now starting to crack around the edges, just as Japan did, but it's a slow process.) If you want arguments for tariffs from the educated and credentialed instead, look at the recent actions of France and Germany in making it easier to bar China altogether from some European markets, which is even more protectionist than tariffs. China flooding Europe with cheap stuff has been eroding the industrial base of France and Germany, and frankly, meaningful jobs are far more central to human happiness than cheap stuff. Jobs were already disappearing due to automation and now to A.I., and I think we all know what the unemployment rate was in Weimar Germany. I'm not saying Trump is who we should have in charge of this, but he won because the choice wasn't between him and competent people on this issue, but between incompetently dealing with this issue and competently ignoring it, as was standard before 2016. Trump is if nothing else excellent at opportunism.
As for the oil stuff, I would quote a group of energy industry bloggers who write as "Doomberg":
"you can’t win a commodities sanctions war by targeting volumes—price is the only way. By flooding the world with cheap energy, prices would crash well below Russian and Iranian breakeven costs, turning a steady source of revenue into a penalizing use of funds. Russia’s current federal budget is based on an assumption of $60 per barrel oil. How would it fare at $20? At $15? Certainly much worse than it is at $100."
That sounds spot-on to me.
“Occam’s Retard”: Le Mot Juste! Thanks for the coffee spitting guffaw this morning. I fucking needed it.
I told people in past comment threads and in real life that Project 2025 was going be implemented and received a lot of 🫸 push back. "Oh, he wouldn't go that far! That's just aspirational."
When people tell you who they are, you should believe them. Somebody smarter than me said that somewhere.....
Tell that to all the DSA extremists running for office attempting to walk back uber-Woke tweets from a few years ago.
“Occam’s retard is the principle that when presented with a Trump action that has multiple explanations, the dumbest explanation is the most likely one.”
This is Robert Hanlon erasure.
Trump has historically been able to act something like shrewdly, but I'm not sure he can act non-maliciously except by accident. Hanlon's Razor doesn't apply to someone capable of only selfish action.
(Not That): I like to think of it as an homage to Robert Hanlon.....