I’ve written in the past several pieces about how the mistakes Trump makes with words in his speeches are not “glitches” or “slurring,” but what mental health experts call paraphasia, which is one of the early signs of dementia. That’s when the person makes up non-existing words in place of the actual word they’re trying to say. They often then change the direction of what they were saying. One of the leading experts in this field who has been prominent in his addressing Trump’s cognitive decline is Dr. John Gartner, a psychologist, psychotherapist, and former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. He’s also the founder of Duty to Warn, a collection of mental health professionals who have been warning about Trump failing mental faculties since he took office in 2017. He's also one of the 37 experts in the field who participated in the book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. You can find the book here. Gartner has said that he tells people to take a good look at Trump because "This is the best you will ever see him," since dementia is a degenerative disease, and Trump will not be getting any better. He gave an interview the other day with attorney Jay Kuo, subtitled, "An expert’s view of Trump’s mental slide into dementia," where he address the situation over time and presented four examples that demonstrate how close Trump is moving towards full dementia. The whole article is extremely interesting -- extensive and detailed, as well as accessible -- which you can find here. But several passages leap out and bear being singled out. But something that he says somewhat near the beginning is important to reference at the very start. He addresses the criticism (much from non-professionals) that it’s unprofessional for mental health experts to diagnose Trump without him being a patient. What he responds is, in actual practice, making such diagnoses are actually common, and for a very good reason. As he puts it -- “I don’t know if people know this, but in real life, in day-to-day clinical practice, we diagnose dementia based on behavioral observation and informant reports every day of the week. Thousands of medical charts would back me up on that. An ‘interview’ with a demented person doesn’t usually yield a lot of information, for obvious reasons. "As a professional community,” he continues, “thousands of us have observed hundreds of hours of Trump’s public behavior. We also have dozens of informant reports. So, all the people hyperventilating about 'diagnosing from a distance' should take a breath. This is more business as usual than you might think. In real life, we’ve institutionalized tens of thousands of patients on far less data." All that leads Dr. Gartner to is overall point. That the evidence for Trump’s dementia is this: Trump shows an overall decline from his own cognitive baseline, with marked progressive deterioration in four areas: ability to use language, memory, behavior, and gross and fine motor skills.” Among the specifics he points to are: Gartner notes that Trump has shown a “shocking decline from baseline" from when he first announced his run for the presidency in 2015. At that point, Trump was “highly articulate. He spoke in polished paragraphs with a sophisticated vocabulary. Now, his vocabulary is impoverished, and he often can’t finish a sentence or even a word. Typical of dementia patients, he repeats himself and overuses superlatives and filler words.” In terms of memory, Gartner explains that some things are perfectly ordinary. “Forgetting names and dates is normal for people who are aging.” But forgetting is different from confusion. “By stark contrast,” he points out, “the Dementia Care Society says ‘confusing people and generations’ is a sign of advanced dementia. And this is the type of profound memory disturbance we’re seeing in Trump.” Like confusing President Biden with President Obama, and Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi with evidence of cognitive decline. Rather than Trump just joking, as his staff tried to point out, Gartner says, "The more plausible explanation is that once again we are watching the workings of his demented mind in real time. Obama and Biden have something very important in common in Trump’s brain that can allow them to be fused in his molten mind: two Democratic presidents who bested and humiliated him have become one imaginary super-villain." In Michael Wolff’s book on Trump, where he was granted unprecedented access to the Oval Office, he wrote that Trump would often not recognize old friends. “I don’t mean he forgot their names,” Gartner says. “He acted as if he’d never seen them before in his life. If you’ve ever had a relative with dementia you know how heartbreaking that stage of decline can be-- to have to remind a loved one of who you are. “Trump is almost there.” Third, Dr. Gartner discusses paraphasia and gives a long, but by no means comprehensive list of examples where Trump has used “non-words in place of real words, that usually include a fragment of the actual word.” Among them -- “mishuz” (for missiles) “Chrishus” (for Christmas) “space-capsicle” (for space capsule) “combat infantroopen”(for combat infantry) “sahhven country”(for sovereign country) “renoversh” (For renovations) “supply churn” (for supply chain) “Liberal-ation (for liberation”) “benefishers” (for benificiaries) “stat-tics, suh-tic-six” (for statistics) “crimakle” (for criminal) “transjija” (for transition) “I know Poten” “We will expel the wald-mongers.” And a great many more, covering “Semantic aphasia,” such as when trying to say “Three years later,” Trump instead said, “Three years lady, lady, lady.” And the “Complete loss of verbal language,” such as “Gang boong. This is me. I hear bing.” And “Tangential thinking,” where Trump “drifts from one unrelated thought fragment to another” Where the “narrative is literally incoherent,” rather than “rambling.” For instance, recently outside of the Manhattan courtroom, Trump said, “We can’t have an election in the middle of a political season. We just had Super Tuesday. And we had a Tuesday after Tuesday already.” And Gartner makes clear that this is not just an articulation problem, as some have suggested, but a brain problem. “But all those competing explanations are disproven by one fact. Trump commits these aphasic errors in his written posts, as well, proving the problem is in his brain, not his articulation.” Like when Trump wrote, ““Joe Buden DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES”. And finally, the fourth of the signposts that Dr. Gartner points is motor performance. He quotes dementia expert Elisabeth Zoffmann, an assistant professor of Forensic Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, who told Salon that Trump evidences a “wide-based gait, commonly found among patients with dementia. Video online shows that he swings his right leg in a semi-circle as if it were dragging a dead weight. He has also shown deterioration in his fine motor coordination, for example having difficulty drinking a bottle or a glass of water without two hands.” Dr. Gartner makes clear that he’s not alone in his concerns about Trump, and has started a petition from medical professionals warning of the danger. “We needed a chorus of professional voices. To summon them I reached out to colleagues and put a petition for licensed medical and mental health professionals online that states in part: “Our diagnostic impression of Trump is probable dementia. From our years of training and experience, we are convinced that, while a definitive diagnosis would require further testing, Donald Trump is showing unmistakable signs strongly suggesting dementia, based on his public behavior and informant reports that show progressive deterioration in memory, thinking, ability to use language, behavior, and both gross and fine motor skills.” "We have over 500 valid signatures," he says (and had to discard 2/3 of the signatures that couldn't be confirmed as professionals), "and that number is growing. However, to me, more persuasive than the number of signatures, are the comments left by the signers explaining their professional reasoning and describing the symptoms of dementia they see in Trump."
Furthermore, he makes a significant distinction between Trump and the accusations many Republicans have made of President Biden being “confused” and “incoherent,” arguing that he’s aging badly. But as Dr. Gartner explains, "his State of the Union address disproved any of these claims – he is a high-functioning elderly president. All of this focus on Biden’s age has distracted commentators and reporters from the obvious decline in Trump’s functioning." Gartner says, "I call it the 'double lie.' Pathologizing Biden’s normal aging is the first lie. Normalizing Trump’s dementia is the second. The sorts of small lapses we’ve seen in Biden are part and parcel of normal aging." As he explains, "Joe Biden’s calling the current president of France by the old president of France’s name is like me calling my youngest daughter by my oldest daughter’s name, which I do all the time." The article is much longer than this, with far more detailed examples. It's easy reading though, and highly worth checking out. Again, you can find it here. "My grave concern," he says, " -- we are now seeing Trump at an early, yet very troubling, stage of dementia. I’ve seen from Donald Trump in the past six months, his speech is riddled with cognitive errors, misattributions, and odd digressions indicating a significant decline in functioning." More to the point, Gartner states bluntly: "Based on his current accelerating rate of decline, it seems very unlikely that Trump could see out a second term without falling off the cliff and becoming totally incapacitated."
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If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Sunday, the Main Story was about opioids. However, it's not from the perspective of most news stories and the several recent limited series. The focus here is about what's happened to the money that many companies have paid in settlements -- upwards to $50 billion. It's a long, detailed story and very interesting. As well as, often very funny. Okay, a day late this week (under HBO's new "Thursday drop" schedule), if you missed Last Week Tonight with John Oliver this week, the Main Story was about healthcare, but specifically Medicaid. The report is terrific. Extremely interesting, largely about changes that have been made to the program, largely by specific states who administer it, all of which are creating hurdles for the people the Medicaid is meant to assist. And in some cases, essentially eliminating access. The piece is very detailed, information, galling, fascinating and often extremely funny. If there’s any further evidence needed for how terrified Republicans are by the Arizona Supreme Court ruling Tuesday on a draconian 1864 total abortion ban that jails doctors and anyone assisting the woman involved, it’s Trump’s own statement attempting to save himself.
When asked about the court ruling, Trump said that he felt it “went too far,” but added “It’ll get straightened out by the governor, and anybody else who will bring it back into reason.” This is officially known as desperate flailing. First of all, Trump’s position on abortion starts with repeatedly taking credit for appointing the U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade – an action that specifically made the Arizona ruling possible. You can pretty much stop there, because it’s so damning, but there’s much more. Second, Trump also appointed judges who around the country are ruling on behalf of abortion bans. Not to mention banning the abortion pill mifepristone which has made its way to the Supreme Court. Further, only days ago, Trump released his supposed “abortion policy” which was that states should decide. And just days later, we saw the result of that: a total abortion ban than jails doctors and anyone who assists the woman getting an abortion. Those are foundational problems for Republicans and Trump on abortion, and damning ones, whatever Trump tries to say. And what he says just shines a light on them all. For instance, in saying the court “Went too far” ignores the reality that that’s the risk you take when leaving abortion law up to individual states and not have a national abortion ruling, as Roe v. Wade was. In addition, by saying the court “Went too far,” Trump may think he’s appealing to Independents (never mind that he didn’t say how “too far” they went…), but what he’s really doing is spitting in the face of his most loyal extreme-right base of “evangelical Christians” (sic) for whom a total abortion ban is the only option. Moreover, when he says the Arizona law will get “straightened out by the governor” who will “bring it back into reason”– he’s not only living desperately on hope and a prayer, but far more importantly, if that actually comes to pass, he’s putting the fix into the hands of the Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs… whose idea of reason when it comes to abortion is most surely completely different from Trump, his extreme-right base and “evangelical Christians” (sic). (And by the way, making this ace Trump policy of "No problem, dude, it'll be straightened out by the governor" all the more troubling for him and the entire Republican Party is that, just this morning, the MAGOP House in Arizona blocked an effort to repeal the 1864 bill!! Yes, really. So much for, y'know, Republicans being part of "bringing it back into reason.") But if the Democratic governor straightening it out hopefully does come to pass, it won’t be soon enough to keep the law from going into effect in just 12 days. And importantly, too, even if it does get fixed, the damage is done – the headline of total abortion may is out there and written in stone. It shows everyone that “This is the Risk,” this is what you get from Republicans and Trump’s “I’m responsible for ending Roe, and now leave it to the states” even if it gets fixed (by the Democratic governor in Arizona – your state might not be as lucky). There’s another thing Trump said, as well. That if he is president and a national total abortion ban came across his desk, he wouldn’t sign it. I believe that the correct response is – HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Putting aside that the make-up of Congress will near-certainly not allow for such a bill to be based, if it ever was, and a total abortion ban was passed by a Republican House and a Republican Senate – a bill that is the fevered dream wish of Trump’s extreme-right base and the “evangelical Christians” (sic) -- I can see no way on earth that Trump not only wouldn’t giddily sign the bill, but would try to turn it into a TV special with marching bands and fireworks. To not sign it would mean immediately losing his base that would rise up against him, and that would be so out of character for Trump that it is unimaginable. The point being that Trump merely saying this, that he wouldn’t sign a bill, is yet additional evidence of how petrified he is of the horrifying message Arizona’s 1864 total abortion ban sends to American voters. Of course, in the end, next to nothing Trump says – no matter how shuffling towards the center or lying or terrified – matters. Because only three things matter here. 1. Trump happily takes credit for ending Roe v. Wade, which made the 1864 Arizona law possible. And makes all the state abortion bans possible. 2. Trump says abortion laws should be left up to the states. Which is what made the 1864 Arizona total abortion ban possible. Anything else he says is just ephemera. And worse, anything he says, no matter how flimsy and false, only serves to remind people what his two foundational positions are. And there’s one other bit of evidence from Tuesday to show how terrified Republican officials and spokesmen are about the 1864 Arizona total abortion ban – On April 9, the day the Arizona Supreme Court ruling was announced, Media Matter looked into how much time the three major cable networks gave to the story. MSNBC gave it 2 hours and 20 minutes. CNN gave it two hours. And Fox? They discussed the story for 12 minutes! Yes, Fox tried to bury it. It’s the ol’ ostrich gambit. If we can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Unfortunately for Fox, I am certain the court ruling got full coverage on all the local Fox affiliates in Arizona – where it actually matters, and most because Arizona is a Swing State and has a major U.S. Senate race in helping determine control of the Senate. And national Fox trying to hide the story from its viewers can only serve to make them surprised on election night when the results come in from Arizona. But then, Fox viewers being surprised by election results is pretty much standard these days. Trump and Republican officials are terrified by the Arizona 1864 total abortion ban law. We can tell by their words and their actions, many which I noted yesterday. The thing is – they should be terrified. And the thing is, this is what they’ve wished for, for decades. A total abortion ban. In fact, taking this "wish" further, I've always sensed (rightly or wrongly) that at least some or perhaps many Republican politicians weren't as strongly anti-abortion as they cried out in righteousness for their wish, but rather it was a great issue for them to appeal to the evangelical base and get votes and donations, and ride along on that wave of support, always sure in their mind that total abortion wouldn't ever become real. Or for many of them, even thinking that ending Roe wouldn't likely ever happen. But it was a great campaign issue, bumper stick slogan and battle cry. A wish. Maybe not probable, but oh, what a wish. A total abortion ban. It's the proverbial dog chasing the car, one day amazingly catching it, and then not knowing what to do with it next. As I said yesterday, be careful what you wish for. You might get it. Yesterday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that an 1864 law essentially banning all abortion superseded a state law passed two years ago. Horrific as this was for women in the state, it’s a disaster for Republicans across the country, including those who support a national ban on abortion. (The only exception in this 1864 law is to save the life of the mother. But even with that one caveat, it’s worth remember that just the past year there are been cases where courts in Red states got involved to overrule doctors in what the life-risks were to women.) Let’s put this in perspective: It’s not just that this law is from 160 years ago – but Arizona wasn’t even a state in 1864, only a territory. It wouldn’t become a state for another half-century. More to the point, in 1864, the status of women was so low that they weren’t allowed to vote. That right wouldn’t come until 1920, when the 19th Amendment was passed. In fact, the Arizona world of 1864, especially for women, was so incompatible with today, so draconian, that the age of sexual consent and marriage for girls in the state was 10 years old. And that’s the year Arizona will now have on the books for basically outlawing all abortion, rather than one passed two years ago. If anything can send up warning flares for the 2024 election, this was it. So high that even many Republicans in the state – and elsewhere – are expressing concern. Kari Lake, who is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Arizona, decried the court ruling and called for current Democratic governor Katie Hobbs (who defeated Lake for the position) to start working to create a “common sense” bill that could pass the state legislature. It should be noted that Lake herself didn’t suggest what should be in that “common sense” bill – likely concerned that her “sense” isn’t as common as the rest of the state, especially since about 70% of registered voters across the country have expressed support of Roe v. Wade. This includes Republican Congressman Juan Ciscomani who joined Lake in disagreement with the state Supreme Court decision. But best of all was Steve Bannon, of all people, deeply concerned on his podcast about the ruling. Which is especially weird because you’d think he would widely embrace an abortion ban. Indeed, you’d think most, if not many MAGOPs would be singing the praises of an abortion ban in Arizona, since a national abortion ban seems to be on the party’s wish list and planning. So, why then are they so deeply concerned and upset about court ruling you’d like was their greatest wish?? Well, you see, there is a petition to put an abortion rights bill on the Arizona ballot this fall, and if it gets on, it only would need a majority vote to pass. It needs 400,000 signatures to quality – and at the moment, it has 500,000! And there are still several months to go for supporters to gather even more signatures. Now, keep in mind that special elections for abortion rights have passed by wide margins in every state where they’ve been on the ballot, including in Red states like Kansas and Ohio. Republicans have fought desperately to keep such bills off their state ballots, to no success so far – in fact, the Florida state Supreme Court just allowed such a bill to be eligible for the state ballot. And again: this Republican concern has been, as I said, even in Red states, where the losing debate has been over banning abortion after 6 or perhaps 15 weeks. Imagine now an abortion debate is over a total ban! And then remember that this isn’t a Red state, or even a Blue state, but…a Swing State. Arizona really matters this year, a lot. And not just for the presidential race, but there’s a major Senate race, as well, critical for control of the U.S. Senate. It’s between Democrat Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake – hey, remember her??! No wonder the Steve Bannons of the world and others are horrified by this total abortion ban in Arizona. It’s one thing to call for it and rile up your base. It’s one thing to pretend you’re shuffling towards the center, just to get in office, where you can than push for a national abortion ban after you’re elected and safely in office. But…but…to actually have a real total abortion ban on the books staring voters in the face as they head to the polls in November, that’s the worst nightmare an anti-abortion advocate can have. Oh, my, be careful what you wish for. The issue, too, isn’t just a focus on Arizona, but across the country. For two reasons. First, Democrats can point to Arizona and show, see, this is what Republicans really want. A total national abortion ban. Elect Republicans to the Senate and House – and presidency – and this is likely what they will push for if they get control. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?? No matter how much Republicans are trying to flim-flam the public and shuffle towards the center. Just look at Arizona. See what they have there. An actual, real, true, honest total abortion ban. And second, only days ago, Trump released in shuffle-footed attempt to obfuscate his position. One the one hand, claiming responsibility for overturning Roe v. Wade (which is the main outrage for abortion rights supporters) – while on the other hand, insisting that all he supposedly really wants is for each state to decide for themselves about abortion. And then days later – WHAM!! There is Arizona ruling that there should be a total ban on abortion. Imagine him going on the campaign trail and crying out for states making the decision – as “What about Arizon???!!” is shouted out by the vast majority of women listening around the country. Not to mention all the men who support abortion right. And anyone else horrified by a total abortion ban. And the specter Arizona causes for a national abortion ban. This is what so many MAGOPs have been crying about wanting for years. A total abortion ban. And in Arizona – a Swing State, with a major Senate race being contested -- they got it. And lest anyone think I'm exaggerating the huge importance of this court decision in Arizona -- after I wrote this article offline yesterday and went to code it for posting today, I first checked my email. And there was a fundraising email for Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, Ruben Gallego. Its subject like was, "a dark day". As the expression goes: don't take my word for it, here's what the candidate himself said, and how his note opens. It's like he was looking over my shoulder...or I was looking over his -- Robert, I am incredibly disappointed. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. The guest on this week’s Al Franken podcast is Mini Timmaraju, President & CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All. As Al writes, “Reproductive rights are under attack all over the country and will be one of the most important issues in the election this November. Abortion bans and limits on reproductive help are extremely unpopular and could be bad news for the Republicans enacting them. This is a must listen for reproductive rights!”
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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