A guest Post from Alby Damned
Psychoanalyzing Donald Trump has been an all-American parlor game for going on 18 months now, but I think we may be asking the wrong question — or, perhaps, viewing it through the wrong frame. I don’t think he is mentally ill.
Yes, there’s ample evidence of Trump’s narcissism, paranoia, verminophobia, racism, and misogyny, along with a grab-bag of minor personality quirks. But most people are missing the obvious signs of a potential health problem that, I believe, renders him mentally unfit to carry out the duties of the office.
I strongly suspect Donald Trump suffers from dementia.
This idea is not new. It was floated as far back as October 2015, when Steve King assembled evidence at Death and Taxes. Esquire’s Charles Pierce, whose father succumbed to Alzheimer’s, for months has noted symptoms consistent with the condition. But the idea seems not to have broken through to the general media.
I mostly forgot about it myself until I saw something the other day, quoting something Trump said back in April, in an interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. Woodward, ever the sycophant, asked him about the fact that he was running as a Republican. Let’s go to the transcript:
BW: [W]e have this party that you are running to be the nominee in, and it’s got two heritages. Lincoln and Nixon.
DT: That’s true. That’s true.
BW: And why did Lincoln succeed? Thought about that at all?
DT: Well, I think Lincoln succeeded for numerous reasons. He was a man who was of great intelligence, which most presidents would be. But he was a man of great intelligence, but he was also a man that did something that was a very vital thing to do at that time. Ten years before or 20 years before, what he was doing would never have even been thought possible. So he did something that was a very important thing to do, and especially at that time. And Nixon failed, I think to a certain extent, because of his personality. You know? It was just that personality. Very severe, very exclusive. In other words, people couldn’t come in. And people didn’t like him. I mean, people didn’t like him.
You see what’s going on there. Trump is fishing around in his memory for what it was Lincoln did. He knew it was important, and he knew he should remember it, and that it came at a crucial time… dammit, why can’t I remember what that guy did?
Most outlets treated the story as evidence that Trump is stupid, which he clearly is not, or was not in the not-so-distant past. Yet he could not remember basic facts that all Americans take in with their mother’s milk: Lincoln saved the Union and freed the slaves. Trump didn’t just forget a name or a place — the proper nouns are the first to go — he forgot the entire biography of Abraham Lincoln. He reached for the memory file and came up empty.
Like many Boomers, I have aging relatives who have suffered (or are still suffering) from dementia, some with Alzheimer’s, some not. I’m obviously no doctor, but I have dealt with many different people, not all of them as old as Trump, who in the earlier stages of dementia could still bluff their way through most situations with all but their intimates. I increasingly get the impression that Trump is doing the same.
The medical community tells us that at least two of these core mental functions must be significantly impaired to be considered dementia:
• Memory
• Communication and language
• Ability to focus and pay attention
• Reasoning and judgment
• Visual perception
Trump’s problems with communication and language are obvious. So is his inability to focus on a subject for any length of time. His reasoning and judgment have been called into question repeatedly, and there are many instances, like the Lincoln example above, demonstrating an impaired memory. I had no reason to doubt his visual perception until he said he saw millions of people at his inauguration.
The only doubt now is how “significantly” he is impaired in any of those areas. He’s not so far gone that he can’t bluff his way through with his usual vocalizations, but I think the country is owed a true physical and mental assessment of the president’s health, from a doctor who examines him for more than 10 minutes. I have little doubt what such a battery of tests would find, but I welcome the findings whatever they might be.
I would call it sad, except that sounds like I’m mocking him, and I don’t mean to. But neither do I find Trump a sympathetic figure in any way. In my experience, people in the grip of dementia lose the ability to mask their true selves. And you’ll notice that Trump has increasingly become exactly as he’s always been, only more so.
Alby Damned is the nom de guerre of retired journalist and talk show host Al Mascitti. He lives in Hockessin.
