Well, maybe. I've never seen his IQ score or talked to the man, but I have to agree with Charles Gasparino of the Fox Business Network that there's sanity and insanity, at least on economic policy, and Trump's policies have been eminently sane:
One thing we don’t have to worry about is the economic sanity of President Trump.Gasparino then asks us to speculate as to what an insane president might do to our national economy. It might look something like this:
In fact, it’s safe to say that the current president, for all his temperamental flaws and petty insecurities, makes his tightly wound predecessor, Barack Obama, look like a raving madman when it comes to showing sense on economic growth. Armchair psychiatrists are having a field day diagnosing the president’s mental state from afar, especially after his increasingly bizarre tweeting, but the market says otherwise.
Consider: The United States had one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world — so high that companies (and jobs) were fleeing to places like Ireland. That’s why it was perfectly sane to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent as Trump just did, and presto: Corporations are announcing plans to hire more workers, and the economy, which was expected to slow after seven years of weak growth, is heating up. The markets are predicting that growth with their surge.
Likewise, regulations have been strangling businesses for years while making it difficult for banks to lend to consumers and small business. Trump went out and hired perfectly sane regulators who basically pulled the federal government’s boot off the neck of the business community.
It was described to me as a de facto tax cut by one business owner that gives him leeway to hire more people. A major win for the working class.
An insane president would threaten a significant tax increase immediately upon taking office following a financial crisis, and then eventually impose one on individuals and small businesses still in recovery.Of course Gasparino is not accusing Obama of being clinically crazy, but he is indicting his unfortunate economic decisions. Nor is he giving Trump an unqualified endorsement. He grants that some of his tweeting is troubling, but, he says, "smart investors with lots of skin in the game think his policies are perfectly rational, and that’s why the markets are soaring along with the prospect of economic growth."
He’d impose job-crushing regulations on these same businesses as unemployment rose. He’d put a cumbersome mandate on businesses that upends the entire health care system just as the economy was finally turning a corner.
A really insane president would blow nearly $1 trillion on a stimulus plan with little planning and direction, wasting much of the money on boondoggles (see: Solyndra) and then laugh at the lack of “shovel ready” jobs created.
He’d then try to spread his delusion to the masses, telling them to ignore historically low wage growth, anemic economic growth and the massive amount of people who dropped out of the workforce because the stock market rallied, thanks in large part to the Fed printing money instead of his own fiscal policies.
I think Jim Geraghty at National Review Online accurately captures the view of a lot of conservatives concerning the president when he writes:
From here on out, conservatives ought to evaluate Trump with the cold-hearted cost-benefit analysis that New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick brings to an aging veteran. Applaud President Trump when he’s right, criticize him when he’s wrong, and ride the horse as far as he can take you — and the moment he can carry you no further, leave him behind.
If Trump proves incapable of resisting temptation and irreparably sabotages his own presidency, conservatives shouldn’t strain any muscles to defend him. You can’t save a man who isn’t willing to try to save himself.