Old Lane Sign

On Saturday, RawStory had an article about an MS NOW panel where one of the speakers was David Drucker, a senior correspondent for the conservative Washington Examiner.  He said that Trump’s "‘old people’ style is beginning to weigh down Republicans for the Midterms."

Drucker goes into detail about the problems this is causing for the party.

“There is a concern about his behavior and his rhetoric,” Drucker notes, “but a lot of this has to do with policy and the fact that he seems to be on so many things other than what voters are focused on and that’s a huge problem for [Republicans.] It's a huge problem for him, but it's really a problem for them. He's not running again. And they are. That’s where their concerns are.”

What stands out most to me here is that, while Drucker is right, and his concern for the party is very real – but he’s unfocused on what the actual problem is.  The problem for MAGOPs is that it isn't just an "old people" thing with Trump – in fact, it’s not even mostly an "old people" thing.  That's the easy part for them – with “old people” things you can give the person rest; deal with his policies in a protective, private environment, and when giving a speech, it’s just reading from a TelePrompter.  The far more pressing hurdle is that it's a dementia thing.  Rest doesn’t make the illness go away.  And if you’re spouting crazy policies and demanding crazy actions behind closed doors in private, they’re still crazy.  And when reading a speech, you can’t control when the patient is going to start rambling far off-topic.  Just the other day at a rally in North Carolina, Trump veered so much off the safe path that he openly acknowledged that he was “very neurotic.”

And making dementia so much worse a problem than all this and just being an “old people” thing is that dementia is degenerative.  So this is the best that Drucker’s concerned party (and all Americans) will see from Trump.

If Trump's style is weighing down on MAGOPs now – and to such an extent that a conservative reporter will address it publicly -- just imagine how the party will be panicking over Trump in six months, when primaries kick in and his dementia degenerates. And in a year, as we near the general election.

What’s notable, too, in Mr. Drucker’s comments is not just him addressing how concerned members of the party are with Trump seeming like “old people” and not his previous, vibrant self, but how even more problematic this is for MAGOPs by thinking that the issue is merely about Trump being old.  And not even just being old, but Drucker refers to it just as "style," Trump now showing an "old people style."  Because when you don’t acknowledge the problem -- that it's not just about being old and not just about style -- you can’t deal with it.  (Now, it’s possible that Drucker knows it’s dementia, but doesn’t want to state that publicly.  But even if so – and that’s an “if” (for all I know, Drucker is unaware or unwilling to accept that many expert psychologists have written for  years that Trump has dementia) – if you can’t handle stating reality openly because the party members won’t accept it, that remains a massive problem.  Because dementia doesn’t hide itself, and worse, it is degenerative.

And yes, I know I’ve said this before about psychologists writing that Trump has dementia, and that I’ve said it often.  But this different, this is taken that to the next level -- it’s the recognition that MAGOPs are beginning to be see and acknowledge that there’s a cognitive problem with Trump.  Because, to the MAGA base, this is someone who has been seen without flaw and sent to them from God.

And lately, slight cracks have begun to appear even to that.  Indeed, it was at the MS NOW panel that Drucker made his comments after a video was shown of longtime Trump supporter, podcaster Joe Rogan slamming Trump for his reprehensible response to the murder of  Rob Reiner.

​“There’s a lot of things that doesn’t feel real,” Rogan told a guest, in a discussion of Trump’s advanced age (as if that was the reason). “The Rob Reiner thing didn’t seem real. That seemed so insane.”

And Trump has recently taken other hits from his base over the Epstein files, because they are convinced it is not a hoax, not a con – because Trump told them it was real during the 2024 campaign and would release the files, which he’s trying to block.  And Trump adding his name to the Kennedy Center was not remotely universally admired within the party.

So, when you add on top of these existing cracks to Trump infallibility the recognition that he has an “old people” thing – which is largely dementia (and he’s about to turn 80), and it’s degenerative, then “That seemed so insane” might be a phrase the party might want to start getting used to.

But this is the hill MAGOPs have chosen to die on, the path they have decided to take. They are letting Trump drive the car, but he's in the wrong lane, heading into onrushing traffic.  And this is their doing.  An unforced error.  Ignoring all the signs right there in front of them.  And it's only going to get worse for the party.  Because dementia is degenerative.  It doesn't get better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M0FfQzSngM