Originally a comment by iknklast on Shame.

One problem Trump has is that he doesn’t recognize the limits of his knowledge. When he “knows” something, he “knows” it better than anyone else, and anyone disagreeing with him must be wrong. He sees highly intelligent people as stupid because of categories (black, Mexican, woman, Muslim) that are arbitrary in most cases, and have nothing to do with intelligence. And these highly intelligent people speak in a way he cannot understand, and call out his lies, and disagree with him, and since he (DJT) knows everything, even things no one else knows, they must be wrong; therefore, stupid.

Even if they were wrong, being wrong doesn’t equate with being stupid, but only with being wrong. If you are able to realize and recognize the possibility that you might be wrong, that is a sign of intelligence. DJT cannot do that. If you are able to recognize that there are things you do not know, that is not stupid, it is a sign of intelligence. DJT cannot do that. If you are willing to spend hours on end learning, even about the field in which you are an acknowledged expert (because who knows everything even about their own field in this complicated world?), that is not a sign of being stupid, but a sign of being intelligent. DJT cannot do that. If you recognize that you can learn something from everyone, even the most uneducated, unskilled person might know something you don’t know, that is not a sign of being stupid, but a sign of being intelligent. DJT cannot do that.

Because Trump has none of the traits of intelligence, and all of the traits of enormous ego, he can only deal with his inability to engage with these smart people by calling them dumb. And his followers, many of whom also lack one or more of those traits listed in the above paragraph, follow right along with him, because pulling everyone else down underneath you (dumbest, not just dumb – they are all the -est) puts you at the top.

This isn’t to deny that the Trump followers have skill sets and knowledge, at least in their own fields, but to note that those do not necessarily equate to high order intelligence. It may not be in the basic knowledge that they are lacking, but in the ability to recognize their own limitations, and in their ability to have compassion for other people who are not like them.