Donald Trump brags about two cognitive tests he “aced” as if this qualified him for MENSA or some such. But he does not talk about the results of a STAT analysis taken in 2017, (showing how his speech style had deteriorated since the 80’s) and one taken recently, showing even further deterioration since 2017. The results are somewhat horrifying when we are considering somebody who could potentially be in charge of the nuclear codes. STAT News:
In a speech earlier this year, former President Trump was mocking President Biden’s ability to walk through sand when he suddenly switched to talking about the old Hollywood icon Cary Grant.
“Somebody said he [Biden] looks great in a bathing suit, right? When he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand, because you know, sand is heavy. They figure three solid ounces per foot. But sand is a little heavy. And he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look, at 81, do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant — he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today,” he said at a March rally in Georgia. Trump went on to talk about contemporary actors, Michael Jackson, and border policies before returning to the theme of how Biden looks on the beach.
This shifting from topic to topic, with few connections — a pattern of speech called tangentiality — is one of several disjointed and occasionally incoherent verbal habits that seem to have increased in Trump’s speech in recent years, according to interviews with experts in memory, psychology, and linguistics.
Back in 2017, Trump’s first year in the White House, a STAT analysis showed Trump’s speaking style had deteriorated since the 1980s. Seven years on, now that Trump has the GOP presidential nomination, STAT has repeated the analysis. The experts noted a further reduction in Trump’s linguistic complexity and, while none said they could give a diagnosis without an examination, some said certain shifts in his speaking style are potential indications of cognitive decline.
This is some scary stuff. The piece goes on to say how Trump is given to “all or nothing” thinking, which is frequently a sign of depression. In Trump’s case I think it’s desperation. He’s got to predict the apocalypse if Kamala Harris is elected because he has no facts to argue and no ability to argue them if he did. So he defaults to hysterical predictions of WWIII, a repeat of the 1929 stock market crash, all kinds of catastrophic events. This is why he went bonkers this past Monday when the stock market dropped 2% — and then rebounded the very next day but you didn’t hear about that, right? He’s looking for something negative to convince people that everything is so bad and if you elect him it will be suddenly wonderful. Here’s the part of this study that will blow your mind.
Another clear trend from his analysis showed that, since 2020, Trump has increasingly spoken about the past, with around a 44% increase in past-focused sentences, and is spending very little time talking about the future. This is particularly striking, said Pennebaker, given that presidential candidates are typically forward-looking and making promises about what they will deliver. It’s something that Vice President Kamala Harris picked up on in her first campaign speech, in which she criticized Trump’s vision as being “focused on the past.”
Even as Trump speaks with more derailments, Pennebaker found that he’s relied on unusually simple words and sentence structures since before he was elected president. A linguistic metric of analytic thinking shows that Trump’s levels of complexity have always been unmistakably low, said Pennebaker. Whereas most presidential candidates are in the 60 to 70 range, Trump’s speeches range from 10 to 24. “I can’t tell you how staggering this is,” said Pennebaker. “He does not think in a complex way at all.”
I have been saying for years now that Trump could not make it through the first semester of law school. He does not have the ability to analyze. And believe me, I didn’t go to Yale like J.D. Vance. I went to a state accredited opportunity school. They let a lot of people in but if you couldn’t cut it, you flunked out. Of 210 of us who started 13 of us graduated, to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
There were people there who did not belong in law school, but nobody was as stupid as Donald Trump. The man is one of the stupidest people in public life. If he was a congress member or senator it would be bad, but as president? He might as well get Lauren Boebert on the ticket. Or Marge Greene. Right now that is the only ticket I can think of that’s worse than the one that the GOP has.
If the Republican party was still a functioning institution, they would pull the plug on this embarrassment. They would ask Trump to step down. But they’re not and he won’t. So prepare to watch the Grand Old Party gasp its last and some other party to rise from the ashes.
And VP Harris is supposed to debate this non compos mentis? To what purpose? About what?
Oh, I think the growth of petunias on Venus and how that correlates with swamis meditating on Brazil nuts. That’s where Trump is headed next, utter incomprehensibility.
I would be willing to bet that many R’s have begged him to give up the stolen election BS and not to run in the past several years. He doesn’t listen to anyone because he’s a spoiled, self-indulgent brat and he wants what he wants. Right now, it’s to stay out of prison and he’ll take “his” party and the country down to try and get it.
He has to run in order to stay out of prison. That’s why he’s losing his freaking mind, because if he can’t get back in power and get his hands on the DOJ and stop the federal lawsuits, at least, he’s toast. It’s now starting to dawn on him how up the creek he is.
WELL WELL,
It’s great, the world’s BIGGEST failure at everything he has attempted to do, bar none, has finally been separated from his HUGE mountain of BS, to a direct stab in his behind by a bevy of smart people that KNOW lots of stuff about Trump’s feeble mind …
If they drew a chart of what this person has related to us about Trump’s losing communication skills and his inabilities to deal with a consistent thought process, he may be done-for sooner than people have predicted … The GOP has NOTHING as a solid platform, Trump is the biggest, saddest, albatross, no, strike that, the weight and drag of a 1200 ton Navy battle ship’s anchor and its chain …
When the GOP collapses, Congress will be in chaotic mode and our new president and vice president, the staff of the White House and other units of Government will have to deal with all the crying and screaming coming from their side while re-building all the crud destroyed by Trump with the backing of the GOP a**holes, the Democrats will have to regroup and unify to prevent total disaster, there ARE democrats in the Senate AND our House …
The GOP has fragmented itself so bad, there is NO common plan, rebuilding to any kind of common unity will go beyond the reach of so many crooks …
The GOP is gone as an institution. Some people see the handwriting on the wall and they know they need to purge Trump and rebuild. Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Geoff Duncan. Duncan in particular is saying exactly that, vote for Harris and purge Trump. I guess a few Republicans will build a new party. We’re gong to see.
As a retired elem. teacher, I recognize his serious lack of reading skills. They complained of him continually leaving the script for his speeches, I said (to the TV) “Slow the prompter down, he can’t read.” A 4th grade reading level guess would be a gift, and would denigrate most 4th graders. He’s a bully be cause the other kids probably teased him.
You may have hit on it. I picked up reading really fast. There were tests at the end of first grade and I was reading at a six grade level. Which means that I was a better reader at age six than Donald is now or has been in his life. Now that is pathetic. Or as he would say, “Sad.”
Ursula: I expect Cheney, Romney, and the several other high-profile outcasts to be able to build up a respectable party operation, but it won’t happen overnight, and they’ll probably need a few election cycles to get up to speed.
“they’ll probably need a few election cycles to get up to speed”. Extrapolating: that would mean a few election cycles of Democratic control to Remake America Great Again……. Only sayin’