Years in the making he realized he was in a bubble and made sure to go and poll the blue collar people he was going to target. There's forward planning and self reflection in that, far more than most politicians. Long term, like you say.

He just has a particular way of speaking, as well as one of his enemies being the self styled 'intellectuals', academia and 'party of science', who seek to cast everyone who disagrees with them as ignorant and evil.

Where he is socially dumb is that he's far too trusting. He can play his overt enemies like a fiddle but the covert ones gained his trust.

I think Trump is extremely clever, but not extraordinarily intelligent. But I think the main reason that he appears stupid to some people is because he lacks impulse control. Anyone who'd shout everything coming up in his mind would appear like an idiot.

When I say "not very bright" I mean relative to the average president. I don't think we've had a midwit president ever. Even Biden isn't a midwit, he's just got dementia. You need to be smart to be president, even if it's just a means to push a destructive agenda.