Ever had a nightmare about being trapped in a car being driven by a madman? Recently it’s starting to feel as if that bad dream could be happening in real time with President Donald Trump behind the wheel.
Trump’s niece Mary Trump, who has a doctorate in advanced psychological studies, cites a family history with the decline into dementia of Fred Trump (Donald’s father, her grandfather). Mary Trump says she now sees the president frequently exhibiting a similar “deer in the headlights” expression, showing he’s not oriented in time and place.
Equally concerning are other worrisome examples. Take Trump’s falling asleep during important meetings. Then there is the president’s speech at the Davos conference where he confused Iceland with Greenland. He further used his Davos speech to rehash the 2020 election and ramble on about his obsession with windmills.
The Davos gaffes followed other occasions when Trump has become confused. There’s the time when he mixed up Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley. He has talked about “running against Barack Obama” and erroneously said TV host Joan Rivers told him she’d voted for him in 2016, impossible since she died in 2014. Further he insisted that his uncle, professor John Trump, taught Ted Kaczynski at M.I.T, ignoring the fact that the so-called Unabomber never studied there and John Trump died in 1985.
Earlier, the president had insanely delivered a monologue about “the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” reference to the fictional cannibalistic killer from the movie The Silence of the Lambs. Trump fancied that Lecter once said, “I love Donald Trump.”
Today the president’s tenuous link to reality figures into the war with Iran. He describes his war of choice as “an excursion.” The word is defined as a short journey, a pleasurable trip, hardly an apt term for a bombardment. One must presume he means “an incursion,” description of a sudden attack. Asked when the war will conclude, the president promised “it will be very short.” Next he declared “it will continue until we have won enough.” At one point, he estimated “four to six weeks” darkly adding: “We expect there will be losses.” Indeed there have been: more than a dozen U.S. personnel and hundreds of Iranians, including the 175 lost, many of them students, during the strike on an elementary school.
Questioned about war’s end, press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted “it will last until the president’s objectives are met.” Those objectives however are shifting and unclear. At one point, Trump bragged about success and having “decimated Iran’s military.” Then he upped his claim, saying, “We have decimated their whole evil empire.” Later he responded that the war would end “when I feel in it my bones.” At best that’s a highly subjective standard and at worst it’s problematic and unhinged.
When assessing Trump’s decline, it helps to remember he is a 79-year-old man who likes to dine on fast food. His favorite order: two big Macs, two fillets of fish, French fries and a chocolate shake. Secretary of Health and Human Service Robert Kennedy took note of Trump’s unhealthy diet as well as his inattention to fitness to say, “I don’t know how he’s alive, but he is.”
Signs of Trump’s mental decline can be seen in his impulsive actions and resort to foul language. Lately his balance and gait seem off. He displays his disinhibition, recklessly threatening opponents like Liz Cheney with violence.
Observers are beginning to seriously question Trump’s tenuous grip on reality and ask: Is he capable of running the United States? And if he has in fact lapsed into psychosis, what can be done?
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