Tom Edsall interviews a bunch of mental health folks today about Donald Trump's recent behavior. Here's one of them:
“Trump is an aging malignant narcissist,” Aaron L. Pincus, a professor of psychology at Penn State, wrote in an email. “As he ages, he appears to be losing impulse control and is slipping cognitively. So we are seeing a more unfiltered version of his pathology. Quite dangerous.”
In addition, Pincus continued, “Trump seems increasingly paranoid, which can also be a reflection of his aging brain and mental decline.”
This seems about right. Hardly anyone seems willing to say it, though, even though it's become more and more obvious over the past year.
Paranoid?
He believes that many people want to see him in jail, and that many people be happy if he dies shortly. But that doesn't make him paranoid.
i'd love to see his family's dead pool predictions
...many people want to see him in jail, and that many people be happy if he dies shortly.
And those are just his (so-called) friends.
Right!
"Just because I'm paranoid, that doesn't mean they're not after me."
yes paranoid. he's under the delusion that he didn't commit any crimes.
That is not paranoid.
And he doesn't care if he commited a crime, he only cares if he can get away with it. By now he seems not to be sure of that.
While he does seem to be having more verbal slip ups, the rest could just be from the fact that the walls are closing in, and he's panicking.
I am not sure it is panicking as much as realistic change of approach. The court cases against him are rock-solid as far as the facts and the law are concerned. He needs to find other ways to fight them, and that what he is doing. How successful he is going to be is still an open question.
For example, using the term "vermin" was not a slip. he wants his suppporters to think this way, to make them more ready to use violence to protect him.
He wants his people to think "vermin -- KILL." They already do this with roaches, rats, spiders, ants, flies ... It's not much of a step up to varmints: weasels, coyotes, wolves ... and not much farther to libtards and such. And it's ALL about liberals -- that they even exist is insufferable.
It's just another example of his lucky streak that his mental deterioration aligns with this.
I have long believed that people ascribe far more cunning to Trump than is true. People think that rich people get away with shit because they are smart, but it's mainly because they were rich. I think Trump's cognitive decline is evident in the way he can't remember things as well as the way people around him describe him. He's a moron, but he's rich. He's a lunatic, but he's powerful.
All of this coagulates into people refusing to state the obvious: he's a stupid man, with brain worms, who is becoming more and more unstable by the day. The possibility that he may be returned to power should terrify us all and we should be shouting this from the rooftops.
"he's a stupid man,."
Calling somebody that succeeded to become a US president "stupid" is frankly imbecilic.
He is evil, but not stupid, which is why he is so dangerous. And part of it is that he is good at making people underestimate his skills.
He is on the way down, like anubody at his age, but still comptenet enough to be very dangerous.
Donnie is genuinely a dumb person by a number of measures. He's definitely really good at something, but it isn't rational thought.
What definition of "dumb" you are using here?
I don't think there is any commonly used definition of "dumb" that applies to Trump.
Trump satisfies my definition of a stupid person. Just listen to him talk, or read transcripts. That is not to say that he does not have skills (feral cunning and instinct ...), but come on - the man is objectively stupid.
Exactly. If you think that the dude who heard about disinfectant working on viruses, and asked a room full of people why they couldn't just inject it into people isn't objectively a moron, then I don't know what would convince you otherwise.
You’re clearly even more stupid than he is.
Why are worthless personal attacks not monitored here? It doesn't happen often here but there it is.
He is evil, but not stupid, which is why he is so dangerous. And part of it is that he is good at making people underestimate his skills.
I think the reality is rather more boring and prosaic: Trump is neither stupid nor particularly sharp.
He clearly didn't possess outstanding business acumen. He fumbled/stumbled his way through myriad business failures, propped up by regular, giant injections of cash. He has always had a fairly strong instinct for reading the room, I think, and possessed a basic, animalistic shrewdness that helped him get away with several decades' worth of financial crimes (but again, a lot of people would probably yield decent results if given $400 million from their wealthy family)—basically his "brilliant" strategy was always "don't explicitly say criminal things—find loyal lackeys who will correctly interpret your criminal intent—and definitely don't put things in writing."
I absolutely don't believe for a second the evidence suggests he won the presidency via a well thought-out, well executed plan. The country's political cycle was at a point where it was vulnerable to capture by a populist demagogue, and Trump, who set out to increase his visibility in the runup to negotiations with NBC, was at the right place at the right time. We live in a universe filled with randomness and chaos, and sometimes countries just get unlucky. Shit happens.
And certainly Trump possesses little in the way of general knowledge. The average bright high school senior would run rings around him in myriad intellectual spheres (his social media posts are often barely literate).
So, a very poorly educated, average to slightly-above average intelligence with good instincts for reading people, a facility with showmanship, and a ton of money—whose bad diet and health habits have helped bring on significant, early cognitive decline (google up some videos of what Trump sounded like 30 years ago). That's Trump.
Hey, fuck you.
Have a great day!
That one is worse. The comments here need monitoring.
Sorry, if someone calls me an imbecile then I will tell them to fuck all the way off.
Interesting attitude.
Anyway, nobody called you imbecile. That is what I wrote:
"Calling somebody that succeeded to become a US president "stupid" is frankly imbecilic."
1) If Trump was even a solid B student he would have released his transcripts. And if he had an IQ any where north of 110 we'd know.
2) He has admitted he doesn't read any books.
3) He is a poor speller and needs notes to remind him of simple things like expressing empathy.
4) He is unable to organize his thoughts well enough to speak anything but word salad.
Now some of these points may indicate cognitive decline, others indicate he is not a great intellect and doesn't strive to be one.
Remember what was said about FDR's mind and look what he did for America.
We have had previous presidents who were not learned people (Regan and Bush 2) and we can discuss how they harmed America but they were not inherently evil people nor were they morally bankrupt. Trump is all three.
I’m not sure that I agree with your assessment of the cases. The only case that’s basically a lay down is the espionage act case but, as a practical matter, he’s almost certainly going to win that one because he’s got the judge in his pocket. And the case that would do the most damage to him is the New York civil case in which the entire judicial system has been bending over backwards for him.
Theoretically, the Georgia case is risky for him because the top count (the RICO count) carries a mandatory 5 year minimum sentence but it seems unlikely that the state would actually send him to prison if he is convicted. And if he really is just a coin flip away from being president again, he’s got nothing to worry about.
He's already lost the New York civil case on the issue of liability. That's hardly "bending over backward for him". He appears to be getting away with lots of shit, but the issue before the court is quantum of damages, which means that Donnie will pay (literally, in cash) for the shit he appears to be getting away with.
My guess is that ultimately the judge won’t impose either a huge penalty such as the $250 million and neither will he impose the corporate death penalty which would force the liquidation of Trump’s NY properties and bar the Trumps from doing business in NY. He might have at the start of this trial but I think Trump’s basically ground him down with threats to his staff and so forth. Which is apparently okay with the appellate court.
"He might have at the start of this trial but I think Trump’s basically ground him down with threats to his staff and so forth."
That is more or less what I say. He loses on facts and law, and wins, or at least gets even, by threats.
And for that he needs fired up base, and he uses inflammatory language to fire them up.
That would be an astonishingly perverse approach by Judge Engoron. My guess is that every outburst increases the eventual damages; a quarter billion is a floor, not a ceiling.
IMHO, he can and would appeal that for many years; either he'd be dead or President[1]; either way he'd be good to go.
[1] He's pretty clear about what he'd do if he gets the Presidency, and if mere threats can successfully intimidate a judge, then actual thugs with the backing of the Federal Gov't would shut that case right down.
Donald and kids have paid out tens of millions for their transgressions in the past with little repercussion. The fans don't care.
Well, I've heard more than one person observe that Trump's vocabulary, never large to begin with, has noticeably shrunk since the year he was elected. And as for his sentence constructions, well, I think we can all agree that they've only gotten more scattershot with age. Clinically, that's one of the classic signs of dementia. Has anyone done any sort of analysis on the corpus of his verbal output? Something like what was done for Agatha Christie post-mortem? Given his senile-sly caginess, I'm guessing this is the closest thing we're going to get to a formal medical diagnosis on the state of his (mental) health.
Some of the worst recent speeches are too coherent to be Trump's own work, such as the "vermin" speech. He is evidently just reading these from the teleprompter. He doesn't use language that well. "u s spells us" is more his speed.
The point is that there are others behind him who supply details and who could actually be running things if he is elected. The agendas of these people would draw very little support if made public by anyone other than Trump.
Hardly anyone seems willing to say it...
Maybe not the New York Times, but Globe has no qualms about saying it. Now at your supermarket checkout aisle:
Trump, 77, Battling Dementia!
How bad is he? "As BAD as Biden!"
Would it matter if anyone talked about it? There is clearly an enormous double standard that makes Trump impervious to things that would sink any other candidate in a moment. People who want Trump will find a way to justify voting for him.
They'll point to his advisors and say they will stop Trump from doing anything crazy. They'll claim that anything is better than the status quo. They'll say Biden must be a million times worse, but the media will never show it. They'll say that the presidency doesn't even matter that much.
Trump comes off as an angry a-hole, and angry voters love an angry a-hole. They can live vicariously through him, letting every evil impulse they've ever had come out of him. There is no reason to believe voters will be less angry in a year from now. My guess is that the House's internal dysfunction will make them even angrier. And it won't matter one tiny bit that the people behind the dysfunction are in the Trump camp. All that matters is the emotion.
" People who want Trump will find a way to justify voting for him. "
The target should be convicible voters, rather than Trump supporters. People that are not politically engaged may not realize how bad he is going to be, so there is a need to make sure they do realize it.
bingo! i have no idea why we waste time talking about convincing his core base of his incompetency/evilness. they'd vote for him if he were literally dead and buried, claiming that his demise was fake news or that on the third day he had rolled back the stone and had risen. they ain't rational. instead you beat him by picking off his support on the margins.
But at least if he were dead and buried it would be easier to remove him from the ballot in most if not all of the 50 states.
👍👍👍👍👍
Like +10. I think you've nailed it, Ceph!
He's not paranoid, he is very, very aware.
That's why his base loves him. He'll see their danger before they do. Ad being the big strong man that he is, he will protect him, because they are as deranged as he is.
His base loves him because they have the same paranoid construction he does, namely, the paranoia of an elderly, unpleasant person who fears their family is plotting to put them in some sort 'assisted living' institution, and as cheaply as possible at that. The fact that the family is even now trying to pry the keys out of their palsied hands after a series of automotive 'incidents' doesn't exactly allay their suspicions, if you know what I mean.
I know a lot of old people. I am an old person. Not a paranoid construction among them. We get a bad rap when a small percent go off the rails. Hint - they were always a bit off the rails.
The Karen's of today will be a real nasty handful when they get old. Nuttier than ever.
Well, yes. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
We need an Amendment putting an age cap on Justices, Senators, Representatives and the President/Vice-President. Maybe they are different ages, but they all need to be capped.
I know. I'm seventy-seven.
If you reach the point when it is possible to pass sensible amendments, then transferable votes, prohibit gerrymandering and direct vote to president would be better ideas.
Also extend the Supreme Court to a "Constitutional Council" with few tens of judges, so imporant decision are not dependent on few, life-appointed judges.
I doubt that this would be partisan. Both parties have old folks who are in office, and both have a lot of younger folks as well. The big problem would be all those old guys in the Senate who would be turfed out. You'd have to make it effective only prospectively with people first elected after ratification.
Yeah, this. That said, there will be no amendment passed in my remaining lifetime (30 years tops).
If we had the ability to do any of that, we wouldn’t need to. When we had the chance to fix the constitution, no one thought it was broken. So in 10 years when this disaster has passed, folks will say we don’t need to fix it either. Might as well let them blow it up. The only way out is through.
I think reform of the Supreme Court needs to be more of a root/branch nature. But in general I'm in agreement. I'd suggest 81 for the presidency/vice-presidency (basically, make 77 the maximum age to run for those offices) and 86 for Congress (84 and 80 to run for the House, and Senate, respectively).
Those numerical age thresholds will have to be bumped up repeatedly as life expectancy increases (over the long haul), just like the SS retirement age will need to be (sorry but it's true).
Hogwash, we aren't living any longer, life expectancy in the US is actually shrinking. Even before that trend there was a split between working class and rich. Also much of the expansion was due to babies not dying due to childhood diseases like they used to.
Likely our choices will be between two older men, both declining mentally. One of the two, even with full mental abilities, is basically evil. The other, just does not seem that sharp.
While the choice, for me, is easy: its a shame that these two will be our final options....
the other "just does not seem that sharp" based on what? his public gaffs? biden a) has a speech impediment and b) has always been something of a gaff machine. the key is what the people who deal with him in meetings, in one-on-one sessions those who witness those sessions. and from everything i've read, biden's "sharpness" isn't a problem.
One - Biden - has demonstrated a higher level of functioning that 90-0dd percent of the US population, and a lot of goodwill.
The other - Trump - has demonstrated a bottomless well of evil, and is clearly mentally unbalanced.
A nice graphic was posted in the comments at Talking Points Memo. It showed a photo of Joe Biden and the caption
"I may have 81 years behind me, but the other guy has 91 indictments in front of him."
Completely misses the point.
The reason that Trump is dangerous is not that he faces court cases, but that he geninely believes that dictatorship like Putin/Xi/Kim is the right thing to do, and that what he will try to acheive if he is elected again. And there is quite large number of people that will go with it, some of them without realizing what it leads to.
Well, it’s a good line. The rule of law is broken beyond repair now. Neither Biden nor anyone else among the Democratic Party officials are willing to admit it. How could they? It would be admitting failure. Oh well, he may have admitted it by this time next year.
If Trump loses next year by a large enough margin, it may be possible to repair the rule of law, so it is not yet beyond repair. It wil be if he wins, and if he loses by small margin you will have "interesting times".
Among other factors, Trump is trying to catch up with his audience; but it cannot be done. They will always be ahead of him.
Trump and about 70 million of your friends, family, coworkers, and fellow citizens. It’s like a slow motion train wreck playing out for fun and profit. Everyone seems content to watch it and pass the popcorn.
The pathology is the platform.
I don’t know if Trump is declining mentally or not. But I do think the most egregious things he is saying are coming from Stephen Miller. My blood runs cold thinking of him as shadow President. If I believed in reincarnation I’d think he was Reinhard Heydrich (the man who Hitler called “the man with the iron heart”) in his former life. He even looks like him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich
I think Miller looks like Goebbels.
There is no good outcome with Trump at this point. If he has a heart attack or a stroke and dies his supporters will blame the deep state for poisoning him. Same if he doesn’t die but becomes incapacitated. If he loses the “fix” was in. If a lightning bolt strikes him on some golf course it will be a “Jewish Space Laser”. If the ground opens up and Satan grabs him and takes him directly to Hell they’ll say he was taken to heaven. And if he wins, or comes close enough that it goes to the House of Representatives, then our policies will be whatever a paranoid delusional lunatic wants them to be.
There is no good outcome with Trump at this point. If he has a heart attack or a stroke and dies his supporters will blame the deep state for poisoning him.
That would be a good outcome. Who cares who they blame?
The people that will be harrassed, and sometimes violently attacked, by them.
That will include almost all officials in the US.
I believe our security people are capable of providing sufficient protection against angry MAGATs. The demise of Donald Trump would (will, eventually) be an unmitigated benefit for America. Let's not complicate this.
" The demise of Donald Trump would (will, eventually) be an unmitigated benefit for America. "
Fully agree with that, and anything that brings it closer is a good thing
But you will still have serious problems with his supporters.
I have a hard time taking the word of doctors who have only seen the patient on TV. As near as I can tell, he's as incoherent as he's ever been, and the only thing that has changed in the last four years is a massive amount of anger over being a loser.
Selection bias leads to confirmation bias.
You're only seeing a tiny smidge of hot takes from rallies that last hours, deliberately chosen because they stand out, not because they're representative.