Donald Trump Woos Republicans By Speaking at a 4th Grade Level

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a39031/trump-fourth-grade-level/

Is this why he's so popular? Is this what appeals to his base? and what does this say about his conservative base.

By comparison Hilary speaks at an 8th grade level and Sanders speaks at a 10th grade level.

Social conservatism is dying out with the baby boomers. The only people in America left that the Republicans can win over are the intellectually deficient.

Republicans are the worst type of big government politicians. That's what happens when you appeal to the lowest types of voters, from your closet racists to your nativists.

There's a certain irony to global matters of finance and politics becoming increasingly more complex than ever, yet candidates for arguably the most powerful position in the world are betting that winning over the majority of voters with simplicity will carry them to the White House.

Nothing, really. God forbid someone try to explain things in terms more people can understand.

@magicalclick: the big issue in my eyes is that he's dealing with complex issues, and he reflects none of that when I hear him.

"The test is imperfect​, as ​it relies primarily on the length of words and sentences rather than the complexity of their meaning."

I love when articles discredit themselves. The intention of this article has nothing to do with analyzing speeches to get a sense of the speakers intelligence. These journalists are simply upset that Trump has people listening to him. If his ideas are so absurd and his rhetoric is so asinine. Then let his campaign implode under the weight of his own nonsense, rather than resorting to these desperate attempts to ruin his campaign. Every time they make an attempt like this they just end up looking like sulking children who are angry that they're not getting any attention.

God forbid people talk at the level of adults.

At least he says what's on his mind.

@magicalclick: Is he? I'm not sure that's the case. Just as an example, either he is ignoring the complexities of the immigration situation for political purposes, or he doesn't see the issues with his proposals.

@magicalclick: I disagree with the direction, but that's not my point. His proposals on immigration are impractical. Not impractical as in "I don't like them" but impractical as in " bordering on impossible."

If you haven't noticed, Trump won the dumbass vote and that's like majority of America these days.

In times like these where the stupid index has risen so high, you need to talk at their level.

His direction is something a retarded monkey might suggest, and he is NOT the first person to bring up immigration. It has been a talking point of the Republican party since before he magically became a Republican.

I seriously think you have to have a single digit IQ to think Trump has anything resembling "good ideas"...

Dear Americans, If Donald Trump becomes your president (which he probably will), God help you all

You guys are astonishingly close minded to opinions that don't conform to your own.

Anybody can write a Trump speech:

I was talking to my friend Ron Jeremy, you know who he is, and he's like "Trump, why is your penis so big" and I'm all like "I dunno, it just is", some of us are just born lucky, as for money, I wasn't born rich, but I know how to get rich, my dad gave me a $1 million dollar loan and I turned it into $10 billion, and I want to make America rich too, oh have you seen my daughter, she's got a pussy so tight you could crack walnuts with it, if she wasn't my daughter... anyhow, have you seen Hilary's daughter, she looks like Rodney Dangerfield fucked a manatee, but no, seriously, the kids you gotta worry about are the anchor babies Mexico is dropping on our side of the border, they stuff drugs up the butts of babies and smuggle them into the United States, then they spend the rest of their life on welfare while our troops are being killed by terrorists, and you know what, Americans know this, and that's why I'm leading in all the polls, I'm so ahead why are we even doing a primary, am I right, I mean I'm gonna win by so much it's going to make peoples heads explode, it's going to be tremendous, we're going to be so tremendous, our economy is going to be tremendous, my foreign policy is going to be tremendous, we're going to deport so many criminal Mexicans we'll have a surplus of jobs...

hey, and 100% OT's conservatives will probably end up voting for this clown in the end

Hardly likely

I think it is funny that people who attack trump supporters always have to resort to name calling and attacks on their intelligence. The thing is when you post nonsense like, "if you support x candidate then you are a (insert insult here)" all it does is make you look foolish, you may disagree with everything trump says but try and express your point with some level of intelligence or it simply turns into the pot calling the kettle black.

As for the (obviously bias) article the OP decided to post, the only thing I can add is this quote from Albert Einstein

"If you can't explain it simply, then you don't understand it well enough"

No matter, Hilary Clinton will be our next president.

@AFBrat77: Honestly I think Bernie Sanders the best bet for you people, unfortunately he's a socialist and the chances are slim for him to be elected president however I do think he is the best bet for the country. I'm a conservatist/liberal voter (Australia) and I despise socialism policies but even so I still prefer this particular socialist to a compulsive liar and a warmongering fool.

This is generally the case, as it detracts from the actual argument and signals bankruptcy. Trump and his likes, however, are an exception. Through complete disregard of intellect and decorum and fierce adherence to deceit and lawlessness, Trump alienates himself from healthy public discourse and renders himself nothing more than a popular lout. By pledging allegiance to such a man, Trump's followers are objectively intellectually deficient, dishonest, and inferior; calling them so is what intellect and virtue dictate.

As a non-American, I'll do most Americans in this forum a favor I can afford and say it out loud: Trump and his followers are filth, pure and unadulterated.

I agree. Anyone can use a dictionary and use big words to appear intelligent. But, the real intelligent ones can put complex thoughts into words easy for the average person to understand.

Best advice I got from my supervisor when I was still a beginner weather forecaster.

Except that Trump understands nothing, even on a beginners level. He's not conveying any complex idea to the layman. He's appealing to ignorance and irrational xenophobia.

He's nothing more than rich ignorant prick. The fact that people here are trying to defend his intelligence says a lot about the current state of the GOP.

It's not like logic works for Trump supporters. If it did, they wouldn't be supporting Trump in the first place!

I am just happy that I feel the man has NO chance of winning a general election, and if the Republican party puts him up for the presidency, it will be an absolute give-in that the Democratic candidate takes the presidency. Trump has NO CHANCE of getting any moderate votes.

@HoolaHoopMan: "He's not conveying complex ideas to the layman."

Exactly. He's reduced complex issues to simple "solutions" by simply ignoring the complexities of the issues. That's not indicative of eloquently laying out difficult proposals in an easy to understand language. It's indicative of trying to appeal to people who are either incapable of or unwilling to deal with the complexities involved.

@GazaAli: No matter how fancy you try to dress it up you are proving my point exactly. Your whole post comes down to you stating that people who support trump are stupid, and no matter how hard you try and dress your point up, it is still completely devoid of substance and merely an inflammatory post meant to try and bait a flame war.

@LostProphetFLCL: congratulations on being another person who proves my point exactly. The funny thing about this thread is if you look at all the anti-trump people all you see are people flinging insults with no substance at all. The irony from people like you is enormous.

@HoolaHoopMan: You can dislike Trump if you want but he is clearly a very intelligent person. He has been very successful in life and in order to do what he has done you need to be smart and savvy, claiming anything else is ignorance. As for the points you made:

1) His campaign is about far more than xenophobia. I am a Trump supporter but I disagree with his policy about illegal immigration. Although it is obvious something needs to be done, I feel his plan is far too extreme. Many people like Trump for reasons other than his stance on immigration, and he has spoken about tons of things besides immigration but the media ignores it in order to make Trump and his supporters look like a group of ignorant xenophobes.

2) You cannot say with a straight face, "He's appealing to ignorance and irrational xenophobia...says a lot about the current state of the GOP" and not apply a nearly identical statement to the democrats, only instead of xenophobia the libs are appealing to people's ignorance on how budgets/debt/deficit work and the meaning of the word "free" Liberals are promising the sun, the moon, and the stars to their voters and that appeals to a certain kind of ignorance as well. It is what politicians do.

@GhostHawk196: I hope he doesn't win. I actually hope none of the Republicans win the Presidency. I'm in favor of Bernie as President.

@pook99: how can you claim that Republicans aren't using budgetary ignorance when staring at a lineup of candidates proposing tax cuts averaging 6 trillion dollars while largely insisting they will pay for themselves?

And how is any of this different than any other politician? They all make huge promises and break down problems into simple solutions they can sell to the American people, or is "I will make college free for everyone" a complex and detailed solution to a problem in this country?

Yep.

@pook99: The difference is that serious politicians (and even slightly more reasonable ideologies like Sanders) acknowledge the obvious trade offs (such as higher taxes in Sanders' and Clinton's case) and are generally not proposing impossible solutions (such as forcing Mexico to pay for a wall on the border and delivering 11 million people).

There is a point where a person holds a belief so dumb that they are not worth arguing.

You should have the sense to know how stupid and unrealistic Trumps plans are. You should have the sense to see how AWFUL of a president he would be. You should have the sense to see how he has a complete lack of substance in his speeches and just relies on a couple general ideas and catch-phrases.

If you honestly support Trump I seriously think you might be retarded.

The entire Republican line-up is terrible this year, but Trump is a special kind of stupid and it terrifies me that there are people out there who are dumb enough to support him and can vote.

Please sterilize yourself. We do not need you reproducing.

@LostProphetFLCL: thank you for once again proving my point.

@mattbbpl: can you show me where the liberals have acknowledged higher tax rates. Everything I have read from them simply talks about higher tax rates on the extremely wealthy(which I am okay with) but does not talk about the inevitable tax hike that would need to be placed upon the middle class to support the kind of programs they plan on implementing.

The reality is that these people do not acknowledge the trade offs, nor do they talk in detail about any of their plans in any kind of detail. They do the exact same thing that Trump does, and that every other politician does, so calling out trump while pretending that their plans are any more grounded, realistic, or detailed is simply wrong.

As for the immigration thing, I have already said that I disagree with Trump on immigration, however, we cannot ignore the fact that illegal immigration is a problem in this country. I agree that Trump deporting all the illegals is not realistic, but if he is elected I think he is the only candidate who will pass some kind of much needed immigration reform bill, and I am sure that the reality of that bill will be much more reasonable than what he is currently saying.

@pook99: i'm currently out of state on a business trip without proper Internet access to write an in depth response, but here's one such example.

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/7/sanders-plan-raise-taxes/

Trump also seems to be getting a lot of support from white supremacists and nationalists.

But at the same time I think this focus on Trump is going a wee bit too far. Which kind of tells me who is actually paying attention to the GOP primary and who isn't. Compared to the other knuckle heads up there I think he is the most reasonable. He's said before he is willing to change his views if the situation calls for it. That's why I think he's unique in comparison to the other GOP candidates - he doesn't seem to be tied down to one specific line of thinking nor does he try to be ideologically "pure" like Ted Cruz. He supports a capital gains tax, a tax on Wall Street speculation, has advocated for single-payer before, and has a robust plan for reforming the VA. Would I vote for him if I were American? Naw, his illegal immigration stance goes too far.

The real candidate people need to throw their venom against is Ben Carson.

Ben Carson would be my number one target if Trump wasn't in the picture.

Dude is a fucking moron as well...

I think you may have misread the article you posted to me. That article does not quote Bernie as saying he will raise taxes on everyone, I believe the line you are reffering to is the author stating that in order for Bernies plan to work, he would need to raise taxes on everyone. The actual quotes from Bernie indicate no such thing, and the idea that he acknowledges a need to raise taxes on everyone in his plan is a falsehood, since as of now, he has not released his tax plan.

Whether you want to admit it or not, the fact is that all the candidates in both parties are engaging in the exact same simplification as Trump is doing, and while I will acknowledge when Trump is talking about doing the impossible, many people who support other candidates will not do the same when their preferred candidate is offering a pie in the sky solution to a real problem.

Yes, I most certainly can. The leading republican candidate at the moment doesn't even freaking believe in evolution or climate change. To imply that the insanity currently infecting the GOP has a mirror on the left is absolutely outlandish.

This is even ignoring that Ben Carson and Trump have been called out by conservative think tanks going over their math with their rough tax proposals. Just look at Carson, he just says 'you're wrong I'm right' when presented with basic accounting. I'm looking back at Romney now, he would be a fucking god send for the GOP at the moment.

@pook99: perhaps you prefer this one: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bernie-sanders-proposed-payroll-tax-hit/story?id=34546554

I don't care about Trump. He is what he is. But, any article that equate intelligence with using big words is stupid.

I'm not that particular about politics and I've voted for either party in the past. But, it's unfortunate that the front runners of both parties are the two people I don't want to vote for.

One thing I will not do is insult their intelligence. As if people here in a gaming forum are doing better in life.

the rest of the Republican candidates are hardly any better, and with Republicans ramping up voter suppression efforts it's entirely possible Trump or anybody else equally ridiculous wins

@jun_aka_pekto: 'One thing I will not do is insult their intelligence. As if people here in a gaming forum are doing better in life.'

Why exactly can't we insult their intelligence? If someone says something that is both feasibly impossible or scientifically inaccurate why should we let them get away with it? Being a politician doesn't make you a genius by any means.

Secondly, what does their lot in life have to do with their stances or being right as well? I'm sure that others, myself included, are doing just fine in life by comparison. Unless of course you judge a person's net worth as the biggest indicator of success and intelligence. By that measure we can be sure that none of us are 'doing better' than the Hilton sisters.

If you want to, be my guest.

But, life is more than just money. It's also working towards and attaining what you want to be. Those candidates, whether you like them or not, are in the running for the highest position in the US. To me, that would indicate they have gone a lot farther than you or me to get in that spot.