Diddler on the Roof
Not that I want to wrote another article about Trump and his dementia – at last so soon after the one I posted on Monday – but dementia is, after all, degenerative, so it’s not like Trump is going to be getting any better. And it’s not like a president with dementia is a small matter. That said, however, there’s a very specific reason this came up again so soon.
Last year, before the presidential election, I had an article here on the subject and quoted Dr. Jack Gartner of Johns Hopkins. What I wrote was --
“Gartner has said that the way dementia, which is degenerative, works, he wouldn’t be surprised if elected again that in two years Trump would be found wandering around the White House grounds in his pajamas, spouting nonsense.”
I mention this because, if you didn’t see the story – and you may not have, because the press has been amazingly lax in addressing even a more genteel way of calling it his “cognitive decline" – Trump was recorded wandering around on the roof of the White House, waving his arms, dancing (yes, literally) and yelling down answers to the press on the ground.
Yes, really.
Now, no, this Trump Jaunt on the roof is not that, he’s not in his pajamas, nor wandering alone. But Dr. Gartner didn’t say we were there now. His pondering is still a couple years away. So, this is sort of the prologue. After all, even though Trump isn’t alone, nor in his pajamas, it’s pretty hard for a president to be alone, let alone wandering. And in his pajamas in the middle of the day. So, no, of course, it’s not the same. But it’s really weird. And disturbing. After all, when is the last time you’ve seen – or even read about – a president walking around the roof of the White House for 20 minutes and yelling down at the press, while dancing and waving his arms to joke about nuclear bombs?!
And I note several reporters shouting up to him, “What are you doing on the roof??!” And “Mr. President, what are you doing up there?” Because this is not normal.
Or as Tevye put it -- "Sounds crazy, no?"
The sound isn’t all clear, but here's the video.
This article for the website of the Newark Star-Ledger covers it well here and has a pretty good description of public reaction.
I have no doubt that there will be many who say he’s just walking around on the roof of the White House, and he has his aides with him. And joking with the people on the ground. What’s the big deal.
The big deal, of course, is that he’s walking around on the roof of the White House. And joking with the people on the ground. About nuclear bombs. For no apparent reason. For 20 minutes. And this isn’t the first time he’s done something this totally strange – like holding a Town Hall, stop talking for a half-hour and instead, dancing. And all the other cognitive issues that each get dismissed with “Well, he just forgot.” Or “No big deal, he’s just repeating himself.” Or “So, he made up words.” Or “So, it didn’t make sense what he was saying, that’s just how he talks.” Or “So, the people involved say the story he keeps repeating wasn’t true, he just remembers it differently.” Or “So, they didn’t have airports during the Revolutionary War, people get dates wrong.” Or, “So, he didn’t end the Rwanda genocide that actually ended 22 years before he took office, people get dates wrong.” Or, “So, he didn’t wasn't the first person to use the phrase ‘Priming the pump,’ maybe he just hadn’t heard it before.” Or, “So, sure, everyone knows that people still do use the word ‘groceries', even if he said they don’t, he probably hasn’t bought groceries himself for decades.” Or, "So, he jokes about nuclear bombs, it's just a joke." Or – or – or – or – or all the things people have excused for years that professional expert psychologists and psychiatrists say from experience are signs of the early dementia, which is dementia, and is degenerative before a person becomes unable to function.
I know it gets wearying to keep hearing, “Imagine if this was President Biden,” but the reality is that when Joe Biden had an episode, and it was disturbing, it made headline news for deal – although no professional psychologist or psychiatrist ever went public and said it was a sign of dementia. They said it was a normal issue of aging. Dementia, though, is an illness and degenerative.
So, imagine if President Biden went wandering on the roof of the White House, shouted answers to the press down below on the ground, and started joking, dancing and waving his arms about nukes. Not to mention everything else that’s led up to this.
No one has to agree with what professional psychologist or psychiatrists call signs of early dementia. People can keep excusing every instance after instance after instance. That doesn’t make it all go away, of course. Nor does the press have to call it dementia either. Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC is pretty much the only one with that large a platform who does. But they should at least address that this is not normal and is showing cognitive decline. In part to be journalistically bipartisan to how they covered Trump’s predecessor – and in part because all these weird, abnormal things are happening regularly before their eyes. Because a presidential walking around on the roof of the White is not normal.
At the very least, it's really weird. Again.
And at most, it puts the country at risk.
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