In response to comments questioning his mental stability and cognitive capacity, Donald Trump once tweeted:
Actually throughout my life my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being like really smart…I went from VERY successful businessman to top T.V. Star…….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart but genius….and a very stable genius at that!
Since then he has taken the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (a screening test for dementia and other cognitive impairments) a few times during physical exams. After the first time, he famously described his performance in a Fox News interview:
Like a memory question, it’s like you’ll go “person, woman, man, camera, TV.” Ten minutes, 15, 20 minutes later, they say “Remember the first question?” — not the first, but the tenth question. “Give us that again. Can you do that?” You go “person, woman, man, camera, TV.” They say, “That’s amazing. How did you do that?” I have, like, a good memory, because I’m cognitively there.
The hilarious video can be found here. Trump truly seems to believe that the MoCA is some kind of IQ test and that his performance is off the charts. He is Dunning-Kruger personified.
He took it again this year, and once again he bragged about his performance:
…and by the way I took my cognitive exam as part of my physical exam and I got the highest mark and one of the doctors said, “Sir, I’ve never seen anybody get that kind of — that was the highest mark.” I hope you’re happy with that. Although they haven’t been bugging me too much to take a cognitive but I did do my physical and it was released. I hope you’re all happy with it. I noticed there’s no question so probably you are but the cognitive, they said to me, “Sir, would you like to take a cognitive test?” I said “Did Biden take one?” “No.” “Did anybody take one?” “No not too many people took ’em.” I said “What about — what about, uh [struggles to remember name] Obama — did he take one?” “No he didn’t take one either.” I said “Let me be the only one to take one.” But I’ve actually taken them three times already. I like taking them because they’re sort of — they’re not too tough for me to take.”
I went looking for an online version of the test and found this:
Tests for Dementia: Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)
Take it yourself and find out whether you’re smart enough to be President of the United States!
Trump is not a very interesting or complicated character. What I find more challenging is understanding why so many people in the US voted for him knowing full well what he is. Trump is the mirror image of what you would expect from a good head of state: he is self-absorbed, unreliable, petty, vindictive, selfish and openly nepotistic. How does one expect to benefit personally from voting for that? Perhaps it was just spite or protest votes? I have read so many analyses and opinions, but I still do not understand.
One: Two-party system. This means voters have no choice. Choice between two is not a choice. It’s a coin toss. It barely qualifies as any sort of democracy. Last time the real choice was between whether people want things go on the way they have been (which is as boring as Biden) or they want a change (which might result in something better, something Americans are ready to believe in because they are raised in the propaganda of infinite success).
Two: Republicans did some serious groundwork last year, I have heard. Lots of minority organisations were contacted by Republican consultants-strategists who sanewashed Trump’s rhetoric like “No, he will target only illegals. Legals will be fine.” and those groups decided based on this that the Republican candidate would be safe. It’s the country of law and order after all, because propaganda trumps facts. I have also heard that pollsters are not up-to-date in their measurements of the extent of electoral groundwork, because they ignore social media and count only door-knocking and landline-phoning, which are legacy channels of groundwork. And thus Trump’s victory ended up largely a surprise both times…
Just my two cents.
Well, I can add a third one: Rigging. Republicans gerrymander the districts, they introduce state legislation making voting different every time in certain districts to disenfranchise voters there and they hijack vote-counting committees. Republicans are the ones casting votes illegally in multiple jurisdictions. Whenever such instances of voting fraud is found out, it’s always the Republicans. It’s in their party culture. At the same time their heightened problematisation of “illegal immigrants voting without ID” does not exist. Any country that keeps such a political party around must be insane on the country level, not just on individual voter level.
…especially if the other option is a black woman.
And that’s another worrisome thing. Resistance within the Republican party has dwindled. I remember when Trump went up as a presidential candidate the first time, most of the Republicans resented him. The fact that he was able to completely take over the party is disturbing.
Also true. I imagine nationalism, racism and protest voting also play into it. I have heard all those arguments, but still I am nonplussed that half of the US populace find appeal in the orange man. The basis for democracy is trust that your compatriots in majority will reject truly reprehensible ideas. If the majority willingly chooses something quite closely resembling fascism, then what basis do you have to salvage democracy?
Corneel,
It is always a worry. Overreaching ICE agents and complicit politicians and judges weren’t hired afresh by the regime; they were already in post. It could happen anywhere.
Trump’s appeal is indeed mystifying. I get that he represents the values of a lot of people – immigration, “America First” – but all that comes out of his mouth or his Truth Social fingers is pure drivel.
I had a brief conversation online with a lady who regrets her vote. I wondered how she could not see the signs. But one telling thing she said: “Peter Navarro [Trump tariff guru] is a socialist”. No idea if he is, but to so many Americans, that is the absolute worst thing you can be. Even in rejecting Trump, she managed a swipe at the Left. A Left most Europeans would not even recognise as such.
Was there something specific in the conversation that prompted this?
Erik,
No, just came out of the blue.
“Yes, his trade policies are pretty confusing. But there you have inept people advising him, like Navarro who I have learned is a socialist.
His Ukraine policy is horrible abhorrent, courtesy of Tucker Carlson.”.
Allan Miller,
Sounds disconnected enough for me to attribute her Trumpism to the usual mindless “My grandparents voted Republican. My parents voted Republican. The only exception in our family is cousin Larry, but he is crazy.” I encounter often enough online the types who acknowledge all sorts of problems with Trump’s circle (“Stephen Miller is creepy and Bannon was even creepier”), Trump’s policies (“Some regulation is needed, I think”) and Trump himself (“He could have done better with those casinos”) but the ultimate decision is “Never in my life can I vote Democrap” for no sound reason of policy or principle.
My conclusion: Plenty Americans are simply partisanly minded. They love to be polarised for no reason.
Erik,
Yeah, this partisanship seeps into all discourse. They swallow the ‘Comrade Kamala’ crap like McCarthy was still around. And often, even a simple point about science becomes politicised. “How very Democrat of you” was a typical response to some point I have long forgotten, but was emphatically not political. And I’m not even in the US.
Erik:
My mother, who was otherwise smart and reasonable, never voted even once for a Democrat. After she fell into the Fox News bubble and became a Rush Limbaugh fan, I knew she never would. She once sent me a Limbaugh book in which she had inscribed a lamentation of the “left-coast liberal indoctrination” I was receiving in California.
Allan:
Many of them don’t even understand what socialism is. Or communism, or Marxism, or critical race theory. They just know that all of those things are BAD, because their tribe says so.
Lol. I hope you are being sarcastic knowing well that the Oval Office is not located in the US? This can only mean one thing….
As ever, absolutely no idea what you are trying to say…
Me neither. Though this can only mean one thing is clearly thus refuted. 😉
My take is that Trump’s appeal to so many voters is a combination of personal charisma, telling the lies people wish were true, promising what people actually want, and a no-so-subtle appeal to bigotry. Oh, and Fox News. When he failed utterly at everything he ever tried (how do you bankrupt a casino?), and STILL maintains a reputation as an astute businessman, I think we’re looking at a public gullibility, wishful thinking, and tribal loyalty.
I’m related to several dead ringers for Keiths’ mother. Enough to know that, in the words of Richard Dawkins, “no evidence, no matter how overwhelming, no matter how all-embracing, no matter how devastatingly convincing, can ever make any difference.” I wonder if a lobotomy would work.
From Trump’s April 22nd interview with Time magazine:
Time:
Trump:
What are those last, “very tough” questions on that “tough exam”?
1. He had to repeat each of two sentences as they were read to him: “I only know that John is the one to help today” and “The cat always hid under the couch when the dogs were in the room.”
2. He had to name 11 or more words starting with the letter ‘F’ in one minute. An entire minute! Even if he only managed to produce one word every five seconds, he’d still pass.
3. He had to explain what “train” and “bicycle” had in common. Ditto for “watch” and “ruler”.
4. He had to recall five words that he had been given five minutes earlier (and had rehearsed twice).
5. He had to state the current month, day, and year, identify which day of the week it was, name the city he was in and the place where he was taking the test (the hospital).
Those questions are what passes for “tough” in Donald Trump’s mind. Lord help us.
The first arrest of a judge in courthouse. (Maybe. Maybe normal in America – whoamitojudge)
FBI: Judge accused of helping man evade immigration agents is arrested
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-judge-arrested-7997186bbca5730e70a25f2347e631f6
Edit: And at the same time I confirmed conclusively that BBCode does not work here and I will never try again.
BBCode has never been available here, Erik.
Would you kindly liberate faded_Glory from the impression that it is available? http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/a-critique-of-the-trump-tariff-policy-and-formula/comment-page-5/#comment-300924
keiths,
Felon, fuckwit, fraud, falsifier, fingerer, fossil, foul, ferret(-headed), faker, faithless, flatulent … did I pass?
Cross-posting this from the other thread, since it’s relevant here:
From an article in Philadelphia magazine:
It fits with the Trump we all know, who thinks that magnets don’t work underwater, than a dementia test measures IQ, that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs, that the concept of a phone app is known only to a select few, and that no one uses the word ‘groceries’. Who can’t pronounce “Yosemite”, thinks that windmill noise causes cancer, and suggested the idea of injecting disinfectants to treat Covid. Who is fooled by an obviously photoshopped image and has no idea how tariffs work.
If Trump had truly been first in his class at Wharton, then nothing but a brain tumor, a traumatic brain injury, or chronic drug abuse could explain how his intelligence declined to the point it’s at today.
Also cross-posting this one:
Trump assesses his intelligence:
And:
And:
And:
And:
And:
And of course, he famously called himself a “very stable genius”, thus proving that he is neither stable nor a genius.
J-Mac:
I’ll take the bait, for purposes of entertainment. Where is the Oval Office actually located, and what is the “one thing” that my purported sarcasm means?
Cross-posting since it’s germane to this thread:
Trump taking credit for inventing the word ‘equalize’. You can’t make this stuff up.
I know Trump isn’t a reader, but has he truly never encountered the word? Or is this just more evidence of his failing memory?
In a similar vein:
Trump discovers the word ‘groceries’
Nice of him to explain to us what it means. At least he didn’t claim have invented it.
It kind of makes sense. If a guy who is “one of the smartest people anywhere in the world” doesn’t recognize a word, it’s highly unlikely that the hoi polloi do either.