General Discussion

To begin with, I don't think people calling Trump "low IQ," "stupid," etc, has anything to do with how any of us feel about people with developmental disabilities. Imo, it's a mistake to interpret insults leveled at Trump in that way. (Stick a pin in that, as I'll be coming back to it later.)

I agree with what twodogsbarking said up thread, that Trump constantly uses the phrase "low IQ" to insult others, and that has led to people using it against him. In other words, he started it. That doesn't make it okay, of course, but "so and so has a low i.q." is an insult I don't ever remember hearing come out of anyone's mouth before Trump started hurling it at everyone who does anything he doesn't like (especially poc).

I think he normalized that expression to the point that it was inevitable that people would start using it against him. We all got acclimated to it (along with all the other insults he constantly spews) whether we wanted to or not. As much as we all hate his rudeness and the constant stream of invective he spews, I think he has created a culture of insults that we have gradually gotten desensitized to, willingly or not, and "low IQ" is just one piece of a larger and very ugly picture.

Remember the way he insulted all the other candidates in the early Republican debates? I watched those debates with my mouth literally hanging open. I had never heard a grown adult dish out schoolyard level insults at other adults in such a fashion, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. You could tell that his opponents were equally taken aback. They didn't know how to respond, and as a result, he was able to get away with it. Again and again.

Those of us with a sense of decorum and an awareness of how people are supposed to behave in such situations were baffled and horrified, but a sizeable segment of the country got a kick out of his childish behavior, lapped it up like kittens drinking milk, and begged for more. Those were the people that gave him the Republican nomination and elected him potus twice.

While he went on his merry way insulting people right and left, he also, constantly bragged about his "very large brain" and claimed to know more about anything and everything than anyone else. There are video montages on YouTube of him saying things like, "I know more about X than anybody!" and "Nobody knows more about Y than me!" over and over and over again. He seems to think that if he says, "I'm really smart!" eough times, that will magically make it so.

In addition to all of the above, I truly believe that he is not an especially bright guy. Smart people have traits like intellectual curiosity, rational thinking skills, and the ability to understand complex issues, NONE of which Trump has ever displayed. I have called him stupid on many occasions, because I believe he IS stupid, in a way that has nothing to do with IQ points. He has ZERO emotionally intelligence, and his understanding of any issue he has ever opined on is demonstrably and distressingly shallow, especially for someone in the position of power snd responsibility he has managed to worm his way into.

To bring this back around to where I started, I want to say that I would be absolutely appalled if I saw anyone insulting developmentally disabled people at DU or elsewhere, but as I said at the outset, I don't believe deriding Trump's intelligence has anything to do with them or our attitude towards them. I'm very much aware of the issues those people face and would never want to add to them. But I think we all need to be free to say the things we need to say about the manchild who currently holds all of our futures and possibly the future of our whole species in his hands, while we watch powerlessly and helplessly and those who actually have the power to do anything about him pretend there's nothing wrong. I really, really believe we need that.