The Dangerous Decline of Donald Trump’s Mind that the Media is Ignoring!

It's time the media examine Trump's alarming mental issues

Every day the corporate media feeds us story after story that Joe Biden is old. We see wall to wall stories about his age, discussion of polls about his age and then clips of gaffes from his speeches curated to fuel their narrative. This explains why a Fox News poll released earlier this week found 61% of Americans have concerns about Biden’s mental sharpness to be President for four more years.

Yet when it comes to Donald Trump, we rarely ever hear stories about the dangerous state of his mind. Keep in mind even without that coverage, the same Fox News poll released this week found 52% of Americans do NOT believe that 77 year-old Trump has the “mental soundness to serve” as President.

But there are recent alarming events involving Trump—who is the GOP frontrunner for 2024—that demand coverage. For example, at his rally last Saturday in South Dakota, Trump abruptly stopped mid-speech for 40 seconds as he awkwardly looked at the audience, his eyes darting around. He looked confused, as if not understanding what he was supposed to say next. 

His supporters online claim Trump—who had just stated the United States was “the greatest nation in the history of the world”--had been overcome with emotion. Have you ever seen Trump “overcome with emotion”?! Hard to buy that explanation. In reality, could it have been a teleprompter glitch? Was Trump having some health issue? Was Trump acting? No one knows because the media didn’t ask.

Regardless of the reason for the pause, imagine if President Biden had abruptly stopped a speech midway through and just began looking around the audience for almost a minute with no explanation?! The media—and I just don’t mean the right-wing outlets—would’ve been asking if Biden had become confused, was he having a Mitch McConnell like moment, etc.?  That clip of Biden would’ve likely been played non-stop on cable news and dissected by pundits and even by doctors specializing in cognitive issues. But with Trump, nothing.

Then there was Trump’s gaffe filled speech Friday at the Washington DC Pray Vote Stand Summit that some in media dubbed a “word salad.”  But that framing is not close to what happened. Trump—who is under indictment for 91 felonies and currently out on bail—confusingly invoked President Obama’s name twice and apparently forgot we already had World War II.

For starters, Trump--in the same sentence he called Biden “cognitively impaired” –he claimed the President was leading us into "World War II." (Talk about irony!) Of course, World War II already happened between 1939 and 1945. (Trump was born the year after World War II ended in 1946.)

Trump then twice mistakenly  invoked President Obama’s name. First Trump declared, "As you know, crooked Joe Biden and the radical left thugs have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading political opponent, and leading by a lot, including Obama — I'll tell you what." Obviously, Obama is not running in 2024 for President.

Adding to the concerns were that later Trump stated, "With Obama, we won an election that everyone said couldn't be won."  Apparently realizing his mistake, Trump then quickly said, “Hillary Clinton”—who was in fact his opponent in 2016.

Again, if Biden had made those types of obvious mistakes, many in the media would’ve covered it as part of the narrative that the 80-year-old Biden lacks the mental soundness to President for another four years.

But there’s another cognitive issue with Trump unique to him which demands far more attention. That is Trump’s belief that he won the 2020 election. Sure, it could just be Trump claiming he won to make his base not view him as a loser, but there is a good faith question that needs to be explored of whether Trump is truly delusional.

As experts explain, “Delusional disorder is a type of psychotic disorder. Its main symptom is the presence of one or more delusions.”   What is a delusion from a mental health point of view? Simply put, “A delusion is an unshakable belief in something that’s untrue.”  

As the Cleveland Clinic details:

“Early symptoms of delusional disorder may include:

-Feelings of being exploited.

-Preoccupation with the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends.

-A tendency to read threatening meanings into benign remarks or events.

-Persistently holding grudges.

-A readiness to respond and react to perceived slights.”

Any of that sound familiar?! It’s Trump to the T.

All of this flows from Trump’s delusion that he won the 2020 election despite that not being true.

Just last month, Trump again claimed he won the 2020 election in Georgia despite that being patently false.  In fact, Trump continues to make the same claim for the overall 2020 election despite his own officials after the election--including his Attorney General Bill Barr--informing him there was no evidence to support his bogus assertions. And Trump knows his 60 plus election challenges in court all failed—including in cases before Trump appointed judges.

Further undermining Trump’s claims he won in 2020 is something he mentioned Friday in his speech and that is polling. Trump is now touting polls that show him leading Biden. (In reality, the two are locked in a tight race within the margin of error.) Well, the polls in the weeks before the 2020 election all showed Biden winning by an average of 10 points. Even a Fox News poll released just days before the 2020 election had Biden up by eight points. If Trump had been up by 8 points like Biden and then suddenly lost in 2020, that could’ve bolstered his claims of election wrongdoing. Instead, the polls all predicted Biden would soundly win--and he did.

This should be deeply concerning to all Americans given Trump—if he actually won in 2024—would be our nation’s commander in chief. What if like his baseless belief he won the 2020 election, Trump convinces himself that another country is a threat to the United States and he orders military action? Or the opposite, despite overwhelming, objective evidence that another nation—or a terrorist group--is truly posing a threat to our nation, Trump has convinced himself that no such threat exists despite even his top aides informing him of the real facts?!

Trump’s gaffes are clearly evidence of some degree of cognitive decline. But what is even more alarming is that Trump’s continued false claims that he won the 2020 election warns us that he is either one of the most committed serial liars we’ve ever seen or he’s dangerously delusional. (Or both!) 

In either case--and for the sake of our nation--Trump can not be trusted to be our nation’s commander in chief. In fact, the only place Trump rightfully belongs is in a prison cell.

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