David Brooks’ Monday column is a very learned essay on stupidity and he makes a lot of good arguments about what is stupid. His stretch is assuming that his opinions can be extended to the actions by the new Trump administration. Brooks ignores a basic fact: Donald Trump is a negotiator. His whole life has been one negotiation after another. In retrospect, he has been fairly successful at it.

Negotiating is a process and one of the basic rules of negotiations is “never open with your final position.” What Brooks has seen is the opening and not the end result, and he is drawing conclusions about the intelligence of the administration. I’d say, let’s not make a judgment based on the first few days; let’s see where it ends up.

John Faris

Waikiki

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