Crazy like a fox.

I kind of agree, maybe. It’s hard to say. One does not have to be well educated to be intelligent. One does not have to be either to be successful if one has a particular talent they can monetize or if they start so far ahead of everyone else they can hire talent rather than develop their own.

On the other hand, even geniuses can be absolute lunatics. A lot of the things that go with fame and fortune tend to cause some otherwise normal and rational people to become lunatics. Think Howard Hughes.

One’s lunacy can kind of be confined to a particular belief area or circumstance as well. They’re perfectly normal except in that one area.

It can also be pure performance as a means of manipulation.

In Trump’s case, he’s a fraud, a grifter, a sociopathic narcissist, and a charlatan. Perhaps he’s also a marketing savant. Oscar Levant spoke of the fine line between genius and insanity and that you can’t have one without some of the other. Add to that some deep emotional trauma and damage… maybe that’s where you get Trump.