In the Times today, there’s an analysis of possible signs of encroaching loss of cognitive ability in the former president. Essentially, the signs are a broadening and intensification of tendencies that have been there at least since the famous walk down the gold escalator that defined the identifying trope and reference of his initial announcement that he was a nominee for President in the 2016 national election.
There’s the reference to his nominal and typical behavior as a businessman, entrepreneur, and lifetime con man going back to his salad days, with the inevitable example from his more presumptively exemplary and compelling, if not charming—substitute “smarmy” if you like—30s and 40s, but still showing the foundations of his style as a “free-wheeling and discursive” 1 speaker. His rambling and rabble-rousing rally speeches, very quickly indistinguishable from virtually every official pronouncement made during his tenure as the elected President, that clearly were meant to do several things at once to cement his relations with his supporters. They are provocative, filled with invective, largely unsubstantiated in stated instances of so-called fact, and variously racist, sexist, chauvinistic, nationalistic, and impossible to refute with reason and the usual forensic and appropriate rhetorical arguments. Even if so with people of average man in the street cognitive abilities, unimpaired faculty of reasoning, and random biases that don’t interfere with ethical judgment, the usual Trump supporter—at the present time—has shown implacable resistance to any reason to doubt his suitability for office.
The presumed expectation is that we all are familiar with individuals, perhaps even with blood ties to ourselves, who are possessed of idiosyncratic, if not borderline delusional, opinions, attitudes, perceptions, and lines of so-called reasoning wholly unsubstantiated by or unproven with rational argument. Yet in the course of the ordinary business of carrying out one’s life, may be dismissed, except as possibly colorful or intriguing yet harmless distractions that ultimately can, if not should, be ignored.
Further, in this age of orchestrated distraction, and universal anxiety, the detailed evidence of his growing incompetence are far outweighed in the minds of people with repressed fears of encroaching chaos. The spectre of further loss of control over the most fundamental aspects of a secure and safe existence is magically erased by the promises of a savior, whose assurances of salvation and the exertion of powers to overcome evil have assumed mythic and biblical dimension in some minds. The equivalent of speaking in tongues—and its inevitable incomprehensibility—is a small price to pay, being easy to tune out in a universe of mysteries and the seemingly inexplicable. The reward is the assurance of realizing essentially infantile fantasies of redemption and heaven on earth.
“[his elocution] seems to indicate someone who has a hard time focusing…” 2
Baker, P. et al. (2024) Trump’s speeches, increasingly angry and rambling, reignite the question of age, The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/politics/trump-speeches-age-cognitive-decline.html (Accessed: 06 October 2024).