An interesting (and scary) New York Times about Trump’s cognitive decline:
Trump’s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age
With the passage of time, the 78-year-old former president’s speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past, according to a review of his public appearances over the years.
There’s no doubt that Trump has slowed down, likely due to age.
As for the other things noted, it is hard to say whether they indicate cognitive decline, or whether they are because he is in panic over the possibility of losing.
I not that the NYT failed to notice Biden’s decline, which I discussed here several years ago. It was obvious before the 2020 election.
Not my business, but I’m curious about the New York Times. Who owns it? I see there is talk of a “Gaza controversy”? Why is the NYT considered by some to be so influential?
Perhaps a better question would be who exercises editorial control? Who decides what to print and what not to print?
For those of you for whom the article is behind a paywall, PZ Myers quoted this today. This is serious: electing Trump would put a mentally ill and declining man into the White House, with JD Vance next in line.
“Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.
He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone. If sometimes he seems stuck in the 1990s, there are moments when he pines for the 1890s, holding out that decade as the halcyon period of American history and William McKinley as his model president because of his support for tariffs.
[PZ: It’s brutal. I’m not used to seeing this kind of analysis of Trump’s speeches from the NY Times.]
He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.
We survived four years with a brain dead president. “Being There” was prescient.
It’s a little late to be making this argument.
I will not be voting for anyone this time. I’m currently in a state where presidential voting is moot. Anyway, I don’t like anyone in politics. As long as congress people increase their wealth faster than a Bernie Madoff portfolio, I assume that all politicians are criminals.
We live in interesting times. Polymarket this morning has Trump by eight percent. That’s betting odds, not vote spread.
What does “this” refer to?
The claim that a mentally incompetent person should not be elected. That ship has sailed a number of times, including 2020.
What’s more scary than an incompetent president is a press corps that lies about it.
No one is going to cover up Trump lapses.
Is that possible or necessary? His Republican associates seem unable to, his supporters embrace them, his detractors highlight them. I’m wondering about the shortening intervals between lapses. When does one long lapse become a state of mind? But not my business. Best of luck to the US electorate in making a choice.
Trump’s state of mind is the world’s business, because as President he would affect foreign policy tremendously, weakening NATO, favoring Putin over Ukraine, and who knows what else. You should care.
It is not my business as I do not vote in US elections. You may recall that a UK newspaper, The Guardian, offered advice for US voters during the 2016 election, which was rather counter-productive. I’m afraid there have been too many mis-steps by politicians with the power to make policy decisions since, well, since politics became a thing, for me to see how the return to the dark ages in Eastern Europe and the Middle East can be reversed.
I fervently hope Donald Trump gets soundly rejected in the election, and that legal sanctions take their course. I fervently hope for a resolution to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that restores Ukraine’s full sovereignty, and that peaceful coexistence can be restored where it once existed in Lebanon, Israel, and a future viable Palestine. Unfortunately, my hopes, and suggestions how they could be achieved count for nothing.
Well, I agree with your hopes, and agree that I am nothing but a bystanding observer of all these event. Even my one vote ina red state means nothing, I’m afraid. The one plce I have any possible impact at all is sharing on the internet what I know and why people should be concerned.
Biden’s state of mind was consequential, and no one cared until it became obvious that he was incapable of campaigning.
Presidents, all of them, are surrounded by impenetrable walls of bureaucracy.
The Nobel prizes for physics and chemistry have gone to research in AI.
Has the protein folding problem been solved? I missed it.
He still seems to be managing quite well, given his stuttering disability
It’s this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._G._Sulzberger
Control of the newspaper has always run in this family. Big mainstream news media in USA has a highly incestuous relationship with politics. Elite journalists are as rich and powerful as elite politicians.[1] Normally instead of reporting on what politicians do, the journalists provide access to certain politicians to get the politicians’ message out and depict them in certain light. It’s like product placement: When you are visible in print, you are afloat business-wise. But when the relationship between the journalist and the politician sours, the politician may become subject to pointed interviews and “investigative” articles. Then again, there are politicians who are unsalvageable anyway and investigative reporting on them is highly warranted, or they may be quietly swept under the rug and vanish from the picture.
In Europe the operating principles of news media are similar, but not as egregiously incestuous. There are practically no elite journalists in Europe. The difference between fact, opinion, and advertising is required by law and clearly marked by formatting in Europe. But the landscape may be changing. Europe is often forced to change its ways and manners to resemble USA. In USA an average petrushka is profoundly clueless about what journalism is. Americans think talk radio, podcasts, and shows like Fox Five and Jimmy Kimmel Live are news.
For NY Times it took so long to discuss both Biden’s and Trump’s cognitive decline because the newspaper respects (and shades) politics and politicians. NY Times editorial board reasoned roughly as follows: Yes, Biden and Trump are old and aging etc., but they are (or were until recently) the top nominees of the two major parties in USA, so talking about their age and ailments would lead to doubts about the political process in USA. Nominees do not nominate themselves. Nominees are nominated by party establishments, so finding too much fault with Biden and Trump would mean to find fault with the sanity of the party establishments or maybe with the party system or even worse. NY Times wanted to avoid going there as far as possible.
[1] This interview between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz is highly instructive. The topic is that Ted Cruz had called January 6th attackers terrorists (which they were, later also sentenced to prison basically as such, namely seditious conspiracy with concurrent violence and property damage), but Tucker says it’s a lie to call them that and that Ted must apologise. Clearly Tucker is in the position of power over Ted Cruz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WfwAwQQCUk
Erik, Appreciate the info, Erik. Will pick up on it when I have more time.
I think the American Constitution needs an amendment, requiring presidential candidates to submit to a thoroughgoing mental and physical check-up before running for President, and prohibiting anyone over 75 from running for President.
I am concerned about Trump’s state of mind, as I am about President Biden’s.
At this point in time, the betting odds favor Trump, 53.9% to 44.9%.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/betting-odds/2024/president
I imagine that stuttering disability is why the Democrats forced him to drop out.
Is there any possible disability or other reason that would make Republicans force Trump out? Rambling speeches are not that. Scandalous behaviour all the way to lawsuits are not that. Complete conviction in cats and dogs being eaten by immigrants is not that. Election denial is not that. Not to mention signs of absolute incompetence like mixing up legal immigrants with illegal, having no clue about how tariffs work, what NATO is etc. Anything? All this is apparently perfectly fine for Republicans.
Heather Cox Richardson explained today why the answer to Erik’s last question is “no”.
“According to Hoffer, so long as they [a cult leader’s followers] are unified against an enemy, true believers will support their leader no matter how outrageous his behavior gets. Indeed, their loyalty will only grow stronger as his behavior becomes more and more extreme. Turning against him would force them to own their own part in his attacks on those former enemies they would now have to recognize as ordinary human beings like themselves.”
Daily Kos decries the decline in mainstream journalism.
Not that “independent media” is any better https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/04/politics/doj-alleges-russia-funded-company-linked-social-media-stars/index.html
Any media outlet in the capitalist world depends severely on funding/advertisers/donors, alternative and “independent” publishers more so than established mainstream ones.
Anyway, in USA the crisis is deeper than just journalism/media crisis. The fact that one of the two main parties (and there are just two main parties, which is where the problems begin) is no longer a political party, but a personality cult of an ideologically vacuous criminal anti-institutional populist and a venue amplifying and validating his fascist rhetoric is not (only) a failing of journalists, but first and foremost a failing of the elite of that party, also a failing of the wider institutional checks and balances, and crucially a failing of the judicial system.
Everybody is guilty of Trump, so no one to blame really. The quickest most straightforward fix is to get rid of Trump, but the fact that this is not happening indicates a debilitating corruption of the political establishment.
People are voting for Harris, not because she has any popular programs or policies, but because she is not Trump.
People are voting for Trump, not because he is competent, but because he addresses all the grievances they have against government.
… and some of them are voting for Trump because he is not a black woman.
I wouldn’t say that. Trump is not capable of addressing any grievances. Some of them he has been capable of making worse, but in general he doesn’t know anything about governing, doesn’t know how to formulate a policy, and only knows how to inflame fear and anger among those suffering from fear and anger.
Yeah, there is a lot of that. Back when America was great, as I recall, the top positions in government, business, academics, the arts, etc. were almost ALL held by white men. And Trump’s largest constituency, by far, is white men aghast at seeing, ahem, negroes in government, in business, on TV ads for generic products. Part of being a conservative is opposition to almost any change; conservatives want static social hierarchies, static values, etc. And imagine their response to not just change, but change that replaces white men from positions they have always deserved, with people who are clearly inferior and less competent because they are negroes, or women, or foreigners. Trump has figured out that his voters not only want these irritating minorities to go away, but to suffer as they do so. Which Trump promises, every day.
Trump hit new depths yesterday (Google about his rally yesterday), which is a very low bar to go under. He’s gone nuts. A vote for Trump is a vote for Vance.
Be careful how you think about that. There are Trump voters who would prefer Vance.
Yes, I think that is something that many Trump voters are expecting.
Just a stray thought: if Trump loses, no one will have trouble thinking of reasons why.
If he wins, no one will understand why.
I assume that everyone thinks their opponents are stupid, but I think, objectively, that IQ is distributed pretty evenly.
@petrushka
Your stray thought is wrong on all counts. Either way the elections turn out, it is not too hard to understand.
IQ among voters does not matter. Everybody (or almost) gets to vote regardless of IQ.
IQ of the election winners matters, and that between the top Republicans and top Democrats is not even close.
Oh dear
Is there anything worse than a worst case scenario? The next four years will tell us, I guess.
Trump with the power to pardon, Republican majorities in Senate and House. An enabling Supreme Court. Plus free rein for Musk and Kennedy. Nightmares are made of this.
United States in Putin’s pocket. Congrats.
Harris was down 14 million votes compared Biden. It’s a mystery.
Biden got 14 million more votes than Obama. Harris got as many votes as Obama.
Once you understand where those votes came from and why they didn’t show up this year, you will understand a great deal.
Where they came from is not a mystery. They were mail-in ballots.
The mystery is why they didn’t show up this year.
Let this stand as the proof of who petrushka really is. Treat him accordingly.
Soundly reasoned.
It’s all water under bridge now. Maybe US voters are, in the majority, misogynistic racists. Maybe they like what Trump is selling. We have a few years now to see how it works out. One day at a time.
There seem to be conflicting ideas about 20 million votes discrepancy. If you are MAGA, it proves Biden was elected fraudulently. If you are black, female, young, it proves voting was tampered with this time. Who will win that argument, I wonder. Will time tell on that?
How is this still a maybe?
We no longer need to spend any time to find out. Trump did not leave office peacefully last time. I doubt he leaves at all this time. We are stuck with him until he dies.
For people following the number crunchers, it was obvious by Election Day that early voting by democrats was down ten to twenty percent. The demographics were not different. It was just fewer votes. Republicans early votes were not down significantly.
There is nothing illegal about early voting. The question is why it didn’t happen this year.
For those who noticed this, the outcome of the election was obvious early in the day, when Election Day voting was typical. Republicans historically have higher turnout on Election Day.
I’m pretty sure the parties do not consider this water under the bridge. They will notice this in retrospect and adapt.
Alan Fox,
The amount in 2020 was large due to covid mail in ballots. The large new Trump vote was due to poor policies of Biden’s admin and twitter showing the problem to more people.
https://x.com/kevinnbass/status/1854181387055603839
Odd. When I said the large numbers were mail-ins, I was personally attacked.
I still find the number mysterious. Why were they down so much this year? It’s not just me. The quotes I posted came from partisan democrats.
petrushka,
Hi petrushka
The mail in rules were modified because of covid. Many drop boxes nationally which inflated the normal vote count for both sides. Have not seen 2020 vs 2024 but I would guess mail in voting will be down. In 2020 mail in ballots grew from 57% to 86% in California.
2020 6,982,750 9,687,076 72.08% 15,423,301 17,785,151 86.72%
2016 5,036,262 8,548,301 58.92% 8,443,594 14,610,509 57.79%
I dunno. Never been to the USA in my whole life. Though it seems Bernie Sanders has a point with “bread and butter issues”. Anyway, enough crying over spilt milk for me. The sun is shining and there’s life to live.
It’s not odd. It is well deserved for a Q conspiracy theorist and Trump personality cultist.
Says petrushka when quoting a Republican conspiracy theorist in support of his own conspiratorialising.