In light of recent allegations – with almost nothing proven – about the Biden Administration’s efforts to keep an ailing President Biden out of the spotlight in his last year as president, much has been noted about the fact that Donald Trump will be older than Joe Biden was during each’s last year in office. Thus it is that attention now shifts to Donald Trump and his cognitive and emotional health, and whether or not either is suffering as Trump enters an even more challenging time of life – the 80+ years. According to The Daily Beast, we can expect to easily detect Donald Trump’s decline because he lives at the extremes anyway, thus, aberrancies should show up that much more clearly and that much earlier. Indeed, the Beast’s expert says that Trump is already showing symptoms of cognitive decline that are easily discernible.
According to the latest article:
Trump, who will be older than Biden in his final year of office at the end of this term, has similarly faced mounting concern over his mental faculties.
“His lack of focus makes it seem as though he’s experiencing cognitive decline, that his brain is not well-disciplined, and he’s unable to maintain a thought and carry it through to a logical conclusion,” Dr. Jennifer Mercieca told The Daily Beast. A professor at Texas A&M University and the author of “Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,” Mercieca said the president’s rhetorical style makes his decline easy to discern.
Weirdly, Mercieca then pointed to Trump’s meandering style as evidence that he has declined – though that requires one to go back and review speeches from 2015 to note the degree because Trump never put together objectively linear speeches. Perhaps you will trust me when I assure you, the difference is night and day and that is true even though Trump was never a good public speaker. At least, he used to be funny – sort of. Regardless, the article goes on:
“Trump sees himself as someone who is unscripted and not teleprompted. He likes to brand himself as a ‘truthteller’ who can and will say anything that comes to mind,” she said. “Unfortunately, that makes his speeches difficult to follow as he digresses from thought to thought — seemingly connecting ideas at random.”
Except, what happens when it truly is random, as it seems to have been often in the past, do we attribute that to cognitive decline or ADHD? (Probably a real problem for Trump.) Or even just laziness, the failure to write a real speech, or lack of discipline in sticking with the speech as written? We will never know because it is likely that each possibility plays a role – at least in part – with each gaffe, each immature outburst, each inexplicable moment, each cringe, each shake of the head – it’s all Donald Trump. But all the reactions listed can be expected with increasing frequency as Trump ages.
It is right that we focus on Donald Trump and his cognitive decline in light of the Biden allegations. We know that every Trump attack is also a limited confession. If Trump is attacking Biden on the matter, it almost surely must be because he fears such an analysis. There is also the fact that Trump likes to hide his more personal failures or weaknesses, and thus he would be the type to enlist his staff in hiding his decline – of whatever degree. There is real reason to watch closely and analyze in light of Biden and due to Trump’s age.
We can be sure that Trump will give us a lot of stuff that certainly looks like severe cognitive decline – but a lot can also be written up to being the world’s biggest ass hat. So there’s that. They are not mutually exclusive – always keep that in mind.
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Kamal Ahmed interviewed Mary Trump on the UK’s Telegraph channel. It’s a truly scary view of her uncle’s mental state and an interesting view of Mary herself, who has a remarkably broad grasp of the issues and the state of affairs in US politics. At least one Trump has her head screwed on right.
80? Yeah, if we’re rounding up. Trump was born in 1946, so he won’t be 80 until next year.
I believe I was referencing later in the term. Either way, I appreciate the clarification – always.
jason
Trump’s asshattery has always been highly visible, but I see a big change in the energy he used to put into his lies! He used to lie easily about his “love affairs” with Putin and Netanyahu (and Kim Jong Un, but that appears to be long gone). He always talked about Vlad and Bebe as good pals mainly because he saw them as business partners.
Trump now shows clearly that he doesn’t understand why his business buddies have bigger goals than Trump Moscow and Trump Gaza. His “lovers” love power and war crimes more than they love him. This is something Trump doesn’t understand and they are putting pressures on him he can’t pass off with simple bullshit and gaslighting. Trump is reduced to stamping his feet and begging for attention from guys that used to have his back…or so he thought.
And, instead of strong lies to Americans, poor little Trump stands at his Presidential lectern weakly declaring “I’m much more powerful than these guys.” You can tell he isn’t even convincing himself anymore. 💩🤡