[@genghismike] As far as I'm aware, Trump's main ideological touchstones are protectionism and American exceptionalism. Those aren't disastrous, stupid ideas that will kill America, and you can infer this by the fact that they were the main ideological touchstones of every American politician who ever lived between 1776 and like... the 90's. I believe the United States of America managed to survive through those dark few years.

Trump isn't campaigning to have pi defined as "4" or to invade Mongolia or anything else objectively stupid. His ideas are maybe a little bit out of the current politician's political mainstream (in that they aren't supported by either the Bush family or the Clinton family), but they're really, [i]really[/i] far from new, aren't flatly dumb, and clearly aren't out of the average Joe's political mainstream—if at least 40% of people agree with something it's safe to say it's not fringe at that point. Trump's most often talked about and controversial position, by far, is to upgrade a fence to a wall and carry out the law as it is currently on the books in regards to illegal migrants. His plan to coerce Mexico to pay for said wall is actually less stupid than it is unethical and diabolical, although I'm sure the Mexican government wouldn't play ball anyway, just to save face.

"Trump is evil" has a lot more credence than "Trump is dumb", but both are mischaracterizations that really only serve to further divisiveness. People need to stop assuming that every time someone disagrees with them, it's because they're stupid. All that results in is everyone convincing themselves that everyone else is a moron.