Trump's Cognitive Decline.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Donald J. Trump, supra-genius, is surprised that there are flies in Iowa, and claims that fly-paper is illegal.

We can only speculate as to why flies might be attracted to Donald Trump.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump Bizarrely Declares ‘I Was Never Indicted’ After Being Indicted Four Times

Fumbling somewhat, Trump continued, “We did nothing wrong. This is all Biden, indictments and impeachments and this is all about Biden, he can’t do anything right. The only thing they know how to do is cheat in elections and election fraud. This is all by himself.”

“All of these indictments that you see. I was never indicted. Practically never heard the word. It wasn’t a word that registered,” Trump concluded.

Don't worry folks! I'm sure some of our faithful blue posters will be along to explain this... just as soon as they've been told what to say by their cult leadersfinish watching Fox News' coverage.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump confuses Sioux City Iowa with Sioux Falls South Dakota during campaign speech

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-forgets-which-city-he-is-in-during-sioux-city-iowa-campaign-speech

Though Donald Trump often makes fun of Joe Biden for his old age, Trump himself apparently forgot where he was at during a speech in Sioux City, Iowa, Sunday, greeting the crowd with, “Hello to a place where we’ve done very well, Sioux Falls. Thank you very much.”

Sioux Falls is located more than 80 miles north in neighboring South Dakota.

Republican Iowa state senator Bradley Zaun appeared on stage a few minutes later and after claiming Trump “is the best president of my lifetime,” he is seen whispering the correct location, Sioux City, in Trump’s ear.

The former president is seen nodding and saying, “Oh,” before heading back to the microphone and launching into his speech with “So, Sioux City, let me ask you, how many people come from Sioux City, how many people? How many? Who doesn’t come from Sioux City? Where the hell do you come from?”

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Donald Trump Sparks Mockery After North Korea Gaffe

During a campaign stop in Hialeah, Florida, on November 8, the former president—who is running for the 2024 Republican nomination—praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"Kim Jong Un leads 1.4 billion people and there's no doubt about who the boss is, and they want me to say, 'He's not an intelligent man.'

"The population of North Korea is 25 million," commented Ron Shillman.

I suspect the reason Donald Trump thinks people like Putin and Kim Jong Un are "smart" is that they haven't been forced from power after a failed coup, their lives at the mercy of a stumbling justice system that isn't very good at dealing with wealthy treasonous criminals.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The problem with analyzing Trump's communications is that there are so many different ways he fails at speaking (although obviously he usually succeeds in ways that work for his followers) it's hard to nail down exactly what's driving any particular seemingly insane utterance.

For example, Trump has spoken in broken word salad for many years. When he utters something particularly incoherent, is it because:

He just flubbed his delivery, and it's an error anyone might make.

He's ignorant, and and just making something up to cover his ignorance.

He's ignorant, doesn't care about the topic, and assumes no one else does either.

He's has something he wants to say, and is going to force it out, no matter how incoherent it seems, or how much it contradicts reality.

He's so ignorant that he does not understand his own ignorance, and thinks what he says makes sense.

He knows better, but thinks his audience doesn't know better.

He's old, out of shape, and just had a bad day, but there's no underlying dysfunction.

He's taking drugs for other health conditions, and sometimes they impact his speech.

He's suffering from some sort of nervous system disease, and this is a manifestation of it.



I had a long thread about his mental decline in the year and change running up to the 2020 election. It does appear to me that he experienced a significant and obvious decline between 2015-6 and 2019.

As I noted in that thread, he was at his worst in the latter half of 2019, when slurring, aphasia, and apparent myclonic seizures were all very common. Then-President Trump kept a very low profile from late November 2019 to February 2020, after which he campaigned hard for President with none of his prior symptoms.

Myclonic seizures can be the result of nervous system disorders, or a side effect of drug treatments for such disorders.

My best, completely amateur, guess is that Donald Trump does suffer from some such disorder, that he had a treatment regimen that was re-assessed and changed on or around December 2019. Four years on, I would further guess that treatment is no longer as effective, or is having side effects of its own.
 
I watched very little of Donald Trump after the 2020 election (and his subsequent coup attempt), but I've caught some recent campaign appearances. The myclonic seizures appear to be back, though not so strongly as before (watch his shoulders in any extended video of him speaking), and the slurring is coming back, as, apparently, is the aphasia.

If you want some evidence that he has been diagnosed along these lines, and is either soft-pedaling the results, or has not been given the full diagnosis, he said this just a few days ago:

During the Saturday rally, Trump continued the defense of his mental acuity, stating that he will let people know when he “goes bad.”

“I’ll let you know when I go bad,” Trump said. “I really [don’t] think I will be able to tell you because someday we go bad.”

Editing to add: Here he is in Iowa a week ago (I think he's gone bad):

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

What's happening here?

https://twitter.com/BidenHQ/status/1749638608577761385?s=20

CSPAN has the full video, and a transcript. In context, it is both slightly better and much worse.

Donald Trump doesn't actually use English grammar, particularly when he's in prophet mode, but here's an attempt to turn what he said into sentences:

We have become a drug-infected, crime-ridden nation which is incapable of solving even the smallest problems. The simplest of problems we can no longer solve. We can't do anything. We are an institute and a powerful death penalty, we will put this on. We have to bring in the death penalty, a terrible thing to say. Each dealer is responsible for the death during their lives of 500 people or more. We must institute the death penalty. It's actually an act of kindness. Mothers will never again be forced to watch their children overdosing and hopelessly dying in their arms screaming, "What can I do? My child is dying."

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump is not in decline, he is just exhausted from the legal witch hunts.

Even if it was legal to hunt witches - which it is not! - Donald Trump isn't doing anything more strenuous than hunting Big Macs from his golf cart.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4432317-trump-says-hell-appeal-ridiculous-e-jean-carroll-verdict/

“Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

I know Donald has never been the sharpest crayon in the box, but I think he used to be able to tell the difference between a civil trial in a state court, and a criminal trial in a federal court. For example, all the times during the proceedings when they said "the State of New York" might have been a hint.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump is currently (2/23) holding a rally in South Carolina ahead of the primary. While there's the now-standard blatant fascism and lies, he is also more confused than usual. In particular, he seems to think he was indicted over his attempt to blackmail Zelensky, rather than impeached. And this is clearly not just word-confusion (which does happen, even to non-octogenarians)- he repeats in multiple times.  No link on CSPAN yet, I'll post one here if I can find one later.

In the mean time.
Indictment/Impeachment confusion: https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1761158381107048548
Incoherence: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1761164615138803752

Everyone has bad days, but Donald seems to be having a lot of them lately. I know that his terrorist group will keep him on the ticket as long as his mouth moves and words come out when you push the ego button, but I'm starting to wonder again if he might not make it to November.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The people are pouring over. It’s sort of known as Steak Mountain Steak Hill. Snake. Snake. A lot of snakes. Think they’re rattlesnakes.

Between the rattlesnakes and the rough terrain and the steepness, they said nobody’s coming ov– the people coming over by the thousands! It’s crazy! And we let them come over. We let them do it.

Our country can’t withstand, no country can withstand what’s happening to us. The cities are being inundated. They’re being overrun. They’re taking the parks from children. Them. No more baseball fields. No more soccer fields, no more anything.

It doesn’t sound very serious. Knocker fields or baseball fields. Very serious. Their way of life has changed, and they’re being treated better than long-time American citizens. And they’re being treated better than our soldiers, our veterans are being treated.

They’re staying in world-class hotels. The whole thing is crazy what’s happening in our country!

Let’s call these brave Americans what they really are, persecuted. Christians, they’re being persecuted. And let’s call their imprisoned, and imprisonment. They are being imprisoned by Joe Biden and his people, evil people! He’s surrounded by very evil people!

They are, I believe, just doing whatever they want to do. I don’t believe they have any leadership at all. Joe Biden, because of his gross incompetence, is a threat to democracy, big threat to democracy.

To reverse these monstrous abuses of power the moment I win the election, I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who has been unjustly victimized by the Biden regime. Never again will the federal government be used to target religious believers. They are targeting religious believers.

How do people sit there and rapturously lap up every word that uncontrollably spills out of this man's mouth?

Because they have chosen not to think. Because they are cowards.

Donald Trump encourages their fears, and then tells them they don't need to be afraid if they just listen to him, and vote for him. Donald Trump encourages their hate, and tells them it's not just okay to hate, but that it's great to hate, especially if they hate the people he tells them to hate. Donald Trump absolves his followers of responsibility for their own lives and choices, and all he asks in return is that they give up their humanity, their basic human decency.

Most Americans have it pretty damned good by any historical standard.  But our world has been changing rapidly for generations, and never more rapidly than now. And not all change is good, and certainly not good for everyone. Neither is it easy. There's a lot of uncertainty in the world, and a lack of clarity on a great many things. And that is scary and troubling.

But it is not a reason to pretend lies are truth. The people who do that are choosing to do so. They're giving up on themselves, and they're abandoning their fellow citizens and the values of America, in favor of getting to feel good right now. And that's pretty damned low.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

'Trump appears to be showing gross signs of dementia': Expert points to new evidence

Trump, he noted, appears to be spiraling into "phonemic paraphasias" during his rally speeches, which he described as, "the substitution of non-words for words that sound similar—are not normally seen until a patient enters the moderate to severe stages of Alzheimer’s."

According to Gartner, "Some examples of Trump’s non-words: Beneficiaries becomes 'benefishes.' Renovations become 'renoversh.' Pivotal became 'pivobal.' Obama became 'obamna.' Missiles became 'mishiz.' Christmas became 'Crissus.' Bipartisan became 'bipars.' This is a fundamental breakdown in the ability to use language. If you were talking to your father on the phone and he did this you would think he is having a stroke. There is no healthy older person who speaks that way."

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

'His team knows': White House reporter reveals how staffers try to hide Trump's decline

"He's surrounded entirely by enablers during this campaign and would be again if he'd be in the White House a second time," Lemire said. "There would be no guardrails or adults in the room, it'd be people doing what he wants. To your point, he is not the same guy. You can watch video footage of the 2016 campaign, some of his time in the White House. We played last week a clip from the debate between Trump and [president Joe] Biden back in 2020. It was striking even then how much Trump has changed, how he's aged. He is in his late 70s, he is only a couple years younger than President Biden. We're seeing with more and more frequency, even as the media -- and we talked about it earlier, how the weekend was pull of polls and obsession about President Biden's age -- it is this, Trump, who day after day is showing the signs of age but also pressure."

"Indeed, pressure because he is not getting as much of the share of the Republican vote as he'd like," Lemire added. "Nikki Haley posting a win over the weekend. Pressure because of the money he now owes, nearly half a billion dollars in a couple cases in New York City, and pressure that his first criminal case, a case that could theoretically put him in prison, starts in just three weeks. We are seeing it night after night on the rally stage, where he seems to even just lose control of the English language. Mika [Brzezinski] cringes, I can't help it either at the end of that clip. His team knows, but they're just forging forward."

"They're trying to keep him off the stage as much as possible," added host Joe Scarborough. "Obviously, they don't want that out there. They don't want him on Truth Social. Again, he only hurts himself politically."

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1764826768366531066

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/trump-glitches-yet-again-during-rally

During a speech in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump claimed that President Joe Biden ‘can’t put two sentences together,’ but despite this claim, it was Trump who appeared to struggle while attempting to deliver his remarks.

He was unable to pronounce 'weakness', 'magazine', or 'alien'.

He also appears to have had some difficulty with Gettysburg:

"Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was," Trump said while addressing the crowd in the town and wearing a Make America Great Again hat. "It was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways—it represented such a big portion of the success of this country," he continued.

"Gettysburg, wow—I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch," he said. "And the statement of Robert E. Lee, who's no longer in favor—did you ever notice it? He's no longer in favor. 'Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.' They were fighting uphill, he said, 'Wow, that was a big mistake,' he lost his big general. 'Never fight uphill, me boys,' but it was too late," Trump added.

While I don't actually expect we'll get a Biden v. Trump debate in 2024, if we do, there's a significant chance that we get SOTU Joe Biden debating a Donald Trump who acts like the demented old man Republicans claim Joe Biden is. (It is always projection, after all.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump Calls Fictional Hannibal Lecter ‘A Wonderful Man’ At Rare Campaign Stop During Trial

Former President Donald Trump described fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter as a “wonderful man” while campaigning Saturday at one of his few mid-hush money trial campaign stops.

That was in-between his other forays into how he would govern and the pressing issues in today's America:

The former president said he had been indicted "more than the great Alphonse Capone… on bullsh**t, too." It prompted members of the crowd to chant "Bullsh**t! Bullsh**t! Bullsh**t!" in response

As Trump continued his typical attacks on the Biden administration, he asked the crowd: "Everything they touch turns to what?"

"sh**t!" the crowd chanted in response.

"You can't use the word sh**t," Trump joked back.

As always, it's projection without a speck of imagination.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I never realised Donald Trump was an adept mathematician.

Trump knows his parabola's and derivative's much better than your average Joe.

Slopes of Tangent Line = Velocity

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5PjekBtCW-/

Meanwhile you don't know how to use apostrophes correctly. Sad!

An adverb at the start of a sentence requires a comma to separate it from the main clause.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1791651238301282518

Much as I think Donald falling to pieces publicly would be karmic justice, I'm not sure the above is evidence of it.

Donald has always spoken as though he was doing a book report where he didn't even open the book and didn't do any prep. That so many people, both among his supporters and the media, and even his opponents, just accept that and let it slide is one of many "Emperor's New Clothes" aspects of his political arc. But if renewed focus on his mental failings puts it back in the public eye, good.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump's issue is cognitive decline, it's sociopathy.

I suspect that it originally, but now there is some significant additional dysfunction on top of the sociopathy/megalomania.

That's one of the things that is terrifying about a hypothetical 2nd Trump presidency (not that he is legally able to be President, but Republicans care nothing for rule of law). I believe that if Biden truly were incapacitated and unable to do the job responsibly, his Cabinet would step up and remove him if he wouldn't resign (and I expect he would), and that the Democratic party would abandon him should he attempt to stay in office. I fear that, based upon demonstrated behavior in the past, Donald Trump could go full Downfall, non-stop and nonsensical raving insanity, and his cabinet and party would just obey and make excuses. (Some of our Trumpist posters may claim this is already happening with Biden. To which my response is: it is always projection.)