As the president threatens to wipe out Iran and attacks the pope, even some former allies and advisers are questioning whether he has grown increasingly unbalanced, describing him as “lunatic” and “clearly insane.”
As the president threatens to wipe out Iran and attacks the pope, even some former allies and advisers are questioning whether he has grown increasingly unbalanced, describing him as “lunatic” and “clearly insane.”
I think the reason (some) people haven’t noticed is the same reason family members don’t notice until it gets really bad.
It’s slow at first.
Maybe grandpa forgets the neighbors name (even though he lived there 20 years).
Maybe grandpa only talks about things that happened 40 years ago but don’t old people often talk about the good ol days?
Maybe grandpa can no longer do basic hygiene without help. But isn’t that normal for getting old and didn’t grandma usually help him ?
The speech pattern changes are slow. Vocabulary becomes limited. Sentences start straying off topic or don’t actually make any point.
You get used to them. You don’t realize that nothing he says even makes any sense anymore.
You don’t realize that the reason he talks about the long ago past only, is because his memories of the past 30 years are mostly gone. And that he seems to be mixing up a lot of things now because the stories are changing and don’t make sense.
The reason he can’t take care of himself is because he lacks the ability to recognize when it needs done and can’t complete tasks that require more than 2 steps.
I used to do cognitive testing for pharm Alzheimer’s research. The amount of people who bring in their family member and say “dear old grams seems to be a little forgetful.”.- and then testing shows gramps doesn’t know where he is. Doesn’t know the year. If you ask him to name 10 animals in 1 minute. he can’t.
He can’t fold a piece of paper and put it in an envelope.
(These are real parts of cognitive testing).
Yes, and something else also: when somebody is a “colorful” character like Trump, it becomes even harder to distinguish what is somebody’s normal behavior from the effects of the dementia.
My Dad was somewhat eccentric and neither my Mom, my siblings or I realized there was something seriously wrong with him for a long time: we just assumed he was being weird like he always was, until he become erratic enough, and most importantly violent - which he had never been - that we brought him to the doctor, who showed us the MRI: he was in an advanced state of FT dementia, but we just didn’t see it. And then with hindsight, it all became clear all of the sudden.
Honestly the best example I use for Trump in particular is Trump in the 90s or 00s vs now. He was still stupid and probably insane but he was also decently quick witted, same thing with 2016 or fuck even 2020 vs now. The degeneration seems to have hit the point where it’s exponential, my great great aunt went from generally being quick witted and strong willed to a broken mess within a year, mind you she was also being ravaged by cancer but still. I couldn’t bear to see her towards the end, the image in my head and what I was seeing didn’t match up.
Yeah we have videos. We can compare him from the apprentice and now. It’s blatantly obvious when you have the comparison in front of you.
Personally I think he is effectively a walking corpse at this point. As in if he didn’t have access to presidential health care he would’ve died by now but is living on borrowed time regardless.