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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I couldn’t resist:
“They’re coming to take me away, ha ha
They’re coming to take me away, hee hee, ho ho, ha ha
To the funny farm
Where life is beautiful all the time,
And I’ll be happy to see those nice young men
In their clean white coats
‘Cause they’re coming to take me AWAY!”
Why has Trump’s mental fitness to lead the country not been publicly addressed by people of authority? Our two Senators, or the medical community, e.g.
Is Vance stepping up considered a greater problem?
Cowardice.
Is ANYONE in his Cabinet willing to entertain the 25th Amendment??
I see Trump’s decline as a symptom of a larger problem in that the Baby Boomer generation just doesn’t know when it is time to hand over responsibility to younger generations.
We have judges on Supreme Court that don’t retire. Politicians in the Senate that still serve when feeble. Our current 119th Congress is amongst the oldest its ever been with the average age of 59 years. The median age in the House is 57.5 year and in the Senate it is 65 years. Our own state’s senator Patty Murray will be 78 years old at the end of her term. How much of gridlock is just due to inherent conservatism and comfort that comes with age and not willing to take risks to change anything?
That problem extends to journalists who just don’t seem to know when to step back and let a younger perspective use scarce air time. For example, Cokie Roberts and Nina Totenberg brought to their reporting a certain viewpoint that to me at least seems out-dated and too close to the news makers to be objective.
I appreciate emeritus perspectives, but let’s remember that they are emeritus. They are meant to be guidance to the generation doing the job of building their own legacy and establishing their own future.
Well, if that’s meant to be a sly dig at Jean, Jean’s not a Boomer.
I view Bernie Sanders as far more capable and brave than ANY of his younger counterparts.
Thank you for putting all these examples together even though they paint a bleak situation.
As an acolyte of the notorious Roy Cohn, Trump’s fitness for political office has been questionable going way back. Born into privilege, he exhibited traits of superciliousness, avarice, and intolerance early in life. Surely there have been many politicians with the same regrettable attributes. But the famously a-literate Trump also has long had a penchant for for blatantly disrespecting others, failing at multiple businesses, and not paying his debts. An unapologetic misogynist, and a likely pedophile, Trump has managed outrageously to work the system, and bamboozle a sizable portion of the nation’s electorate with his public acts of foolishness, playing on their fears and bigotry. Yes, a lunatic seems to be at the wheel, endangering America and the world at large.
Thanks Joe, very clear vision on your part.
Did he ever have it in the first place?