Trump never had the intellect he claimed. He had performance. That was the lesson of Wharton: it’s not what you know, it’s what people think you know. And if they stop thinking it, sue them.

That illusion—of brilliance, of self-made wealth, of “very stable genius”—has now metastasized into a governing ideology. His Cabinet appointees aren’t selected for skill. They’re selected for loyalty and narrative compliance. When expertise threatens his myth, it is erased. When facts conflict, they’re relabeled “witch hunts.” His self-image is the state’s reality.

This isn’t just dangerous. It’s structurally fatal. A president who can’t be wrong builds a government that can’t self-correct. And a bureaucracy trained to flatter becomes an execution mechanism for the delusions of one man.

From real estate to the Oval Office, Trump’s only enduring business has been the sale of competence without evidence. And now, we’re all on the hook for the invoice.