We are afraid that Trump is actually a stupid man. So how could he become rich and then the president of the United States?
Simple. His lack of intelligence (call that real, legitimate, brain power) forced him, at an early age, to focus his attention on embracing effective tactics.
One can liken this rather common phenomenon to an infant crying or screaming for attention. You cannot dispute that that is an effective tactic to get lots of attention. One characteristic is that the tactic is shameless. The infant does not stop crying until the tactic achieves its goal.
However, this tactic is effective while not being strategic. Can anyone say that the tactic is prescient? Or smart? An infant is, beyond mere instinct, not yet a reasoning human being, fully capable of seeing future outcomes based on more complex behavior.
No one can really claim that the tactic is evidence of wisdom. It is effective without being strategic.
Now suppose that infant grew up surrounded by parents that always dutifully responded to that tactic. That child would likely grow up with a self consciousness of being very smart. Even smarter than his parents, because he was continuously getting what he wanted from them. One guesses he would fit the definition of a “spoiled child.”

When the child grows up, he will eventually be judged by a criteria different than his parents judged him by. However, he has already become adept and dependent at using tactical behavior, which worked well for him through childhood. The problem created by “spoiled child syndrome” emboldened by past strong tactical success, is that it has a short effective life.
Tactics are easy to see through, because they are frequently repeated and often enough lead to undesirable results …Why, because optimal results in any challenging endeavor requires a higher level of intelligence than an infant can muster. A difficult task, which governing surely is, requires the ability to consider and calculate the effects of many variables simultaneously. Tacticians will always be flummoxed by complexity.