A Case For Dementia

"No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar." -- Abraham Lincoln

Earlier in this blog I outlined that SCROTUS may be suffering (well, we are all suffering...) from Malignant Narcissism.  There is also a body of thought that he may be suffering from dementia.

A fellow blogger has floated the theory, and I have to say it is quite possible! The blog post is a good analysis of his discourse, comparing SCROTUS and the last President with known dementia, Reagan, and also compares SCROTUS and his younger self, in video interviews on talk shows. I would love to see follow-up research and analysis on his hypothesis.

SCROTUS does look very much like many of my patients with dementia. If I were evaluating him, my notes would indicate that his language is often disorganized and non-specific. He uses a lot of "empty" words like "thing."  His utterances are often non-sensical. He becomes confabulatory. He becomes tangential. He is paranoid. He has trouble reading. His wandering the Whitewash House late at night and his 3am tweets that happen often might be because he is sundowning. He may also have some motor difficulties.

For the motor difficulties part, there isn't a lot of evidence, but there have been reports that SCROTUS is afraid of stairs and falling, and that he clutched Theresa May's hand for support due to fear.  Not great evidence.  But then again, motor symptoms can be more subtle than language symptoms.  I'll keep my eye out for more evidence.

As for verbal evidence, well, we have a veritable plethora! Besides the above-mentioned blog post, there have been a couple of recent interviews that show his bizarre discourse.  The transcripts were released in whole.  It is astounding how unintelligible and bizarre his language is!

The organizations released the entire transcripts, no doubt because how do you edit such bizarro stuff into meaningful, intelligible quotes?  You just can't.  Here, see for yourself: 

Here is the transcript from Time Magazine on March 22, 2017.  The interview was about his lies, and without a trace of irony he keeps on a-lyin' (or, in the dementia world, confabulating). ...when he isn't spouting nonsense, that is. Here is the transcript from an Associated Press interview this week. It is equally as non-sensical and kooky.  Go ahead, read them if you can stomach it.  I'll wait here. 

...

Bizarre, isn't it?

There's so much "huh?" in them, but here are a couple of my favorites.  From the AP interview:

TЯUMP:  But President Xi, from the time I took office, he has not, they have not been currency manipulators. Because there's a certain respect because he knew I would do something or whatever. But more importantly than him not being a currency manipulator the bigger picture, bigger than even currency manipulation, if he's helping us with North Korea, with nuclear and all of the things that go along with it, who would call, what am I going to do, say, "By the way, would you help us with North Korea? And also, you're a currency manipulator." It doesn't work that way.
AP: Right.

And one from the Time interview:

Time: But isn’t there, it strikes me there is still an issue of credibility. If the intelligence community came out and said, we have determined that so and so is the leaker here, but you are saying to me now, that you don’t believe the intelligence community when they say your tweet was wrong.
TЯUMP: I’m not saying—no, I’m not blaming. First of all, I put Mike Pompeo in. I put Senator Dan Coats in. These are great people. I think they are great people and they are going to, I have a lot of confidence in them. So hopefully things will straighten out. But I inherited a mess, I inherited a mess in so many ways. I inherited a mess in the Middle East, and a mess with North Korea, I inherited a mess with jobs, despite the statistics, you know, my statistics are even better, but they are not the real statistics because you have millions of people that can’t get a job, ok. And I inherited a mess on trade. I mean we have many, you can go up and down the ladder. But that’s the story. Hey look, in the mean time, I guess, I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not. You know. Say hello to everybody OK?
Time: Thank you very much, Mr. President.

huh??

And just this morning he spoke to Dr. Peggy Annette Whitson, the NASA astronaut who holds the record for most cumulative time in space for a woman.  She was on the space station, and he sat in the Oval Office with NASA astronaut Dr. Kate Rubins, who looked like she would rather be at the dentist, and Ivanka, who was there to hold his leash.  It was painful to watch!  He could barely read the notes that were in front of him. He sounded like a third grader (apologies to third graders everywhere).  His ad-libs are just about as painful.

You can watch it here.


Others have noted Trump's difficulty reading, most hilariously by Samantha Bee:




His own doctor is no help.  In a medical exam wacky in its own right, a gastroenterologist (again, Huh??) noted that the Lump of Foul Deformity who occupies the Whitewash House “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”  Read The Atlantic's excellent analysis of the obviously SCROTUS-ghost-written medical exam report.

If SCROTUS's bizarre behavior is due to Malignant Narcissism, Dementia, or something else (neurosyphilis, anyone?), it is all very alarming. We should be concerned that a man so unhinged is running the country and making dangerous foreign leaders angry.

Thank you for reading! ...and keep up the Resistance!