Ok, let’s be clear. There are a few different types of people who are Trump supporters.
First, there is his so-called base. These are mostly made up of working-class people many of whom are without a college degree.
Trump plays these people like a fiddle by telling them what they want to hear even if he doesn’t do it, he at least seems like he can relate to them.
Educationally, Trump’s own intelligence matches his base very well so that commonality helps. His various campaign slogans appeal to this group “Build the wall”, “Lock her up”, etc.
I doubt you’d find any actual intelligent and successful people here.
Second, there are the alt-right QAnon conspiracy theorists.
These people are so deep in the Kool Aid they would believe anything that doesn’t match reality.
Alex Jones followers are the base of this group.
Again how out of touch with reality these people are - no intelligent/successful people here.
Third, you have the pragmatic Conservatives.
These were the GOP before Trump took over.
They have too much wealth and greed to ever go to the Democrat side as Democrats have associated with the progressives who campaign on taxing this group more.
They fear that and losing power to the masses more than anything so back Trump because Trump at least can be manipulated. Mitch McConnell is their real leader but they recognize Trump helps their end as a more popular person than Mitch McConnell.
This is where you find most of your intelligent or successful people who support Trump. They won’t fully support him like the groups above but see Trump either as someone they can manipulate to take advantage of (Remember that Trump’s intelligence is not that high), or at least Trump is their preferred option than someone like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders who represent their worst nightmares.
Finally you have the social conservatives. These are people who only care about abortion and they are heavily pushing all this legislation to try placing restrictions on abortion as well as feed Trump with the short list for court nominees.
Like the pragmatic Conservatives they seek mainly to use Trump but instead of being motivated by money, they are motivated by power and focused on their perceived family values which includes anti-abortion.
There may be some successful people here and many overlap with the money group.
In short, generally the people who believe Trump is intelligent or a great businessman are people who are in the first two groups that lack business-sense and/or intelligence themselves.
The relative difference of intelligence between them and Trump would then explain why they believe Trump is a genius compared to them.
The actual intelligent people who support Trump do so knowing Trump’s many limitations but they have chosen to look past those limitations for the sake of achieving a longer term plan’s success where that plan is one of maintaining/growing their accumulated wealth or ensuring America shifts to be anti-abortion.
Rodrick Mak