Excellent article this morning ☕ Dean. It's painfully obvious how far gone trump has gotten. Today will be as good as he gets, because tomorrow he'll be Worse. What gets me is all the people who prop him up and try to Normalize him?! That's pretty sick in itself. Thank You for your insight and will reStack ASAP 💯👍🇺🇲💙🌊🌊
The powers that be are playing a very dangerous game believing they can control this idiot to get what they want. However, behavior of the demented cannot be predicted.
Also, they may have a backup plan to get Trump in, then have him removed so that Vance is in charge. Anyone who thinks these powers could not be this devious is, IMO, delusional.
Trump is puppet, not puppet master. Heritage or some other power may be puppet master, with Trump the tool to win the presidency, with Vance the end game. However they choose to remove Trump, diminished capacity, allow an impeachment or criminal cases to force him out, or other nefarious means. Hope Harris/Walz wins, and we don’t have to deal with that issue. Vance is every bit as extreme and a threat.
Dean, i appreciate the interview you did with Jill Wine Banks on you tube Political Voices Network ‘s channel… please if possible more interviews with people from the World. Mental Health Coalition (their website has symposium posted in full, and a you tube channel has excerpts) thank you for all you are doing…🙏🏼
I don't know if this is of any importance really. But what I became familiar with while acting as my dads caregiver, who had dementia, is generally they love music. I was curious about this so read up on it. Evidently music is the longest lasting memory they keep. My dad would keep the radio on for as long as 12 hours a day. He was fairly calm while listening.
The Djt situation reminds me a bit of the Chauncey Gardner character played by Peter Sellers in 'Being There' -- a terribly demented, inarticulate man being elevated to a figure of worship by a willfully ignorant, 'sane-washing' public.
Except that Djt is exponentially more dangerous because of his deeply embedded racism, mysoginy and xenophobia, wrapped in the cloak of wealth.
Trump gets high ratings when he is on the TV. He is the bread and butter for all the media outlets and everyone knows it. He has the backing of the media owners who know further tax cuts or at least an extension of the existing ones are assured if he wins this election. They know that Trump will not impose regulations on them. ( except the news outlets which he intends to persecute) They fear him and his lawsuit threats. Even Joe Biden regrets appointing Merrick Garland as AG, ( the most timid and ineffective AG in our memory) yet he does not fire him. The judges in his many criminal proceedings have given him every possible break they can. From my point of view everyone is intimidated by Trump and his MAGA fanatics. Who is standing up for democracy? I keep looking.
Apologize for my language, but this is absolutely fucking terrifying. And the part that is most horrifying (and, I think perhaps treasonous) is the role that the corporate media has played and continues to play. The fourth estate has had a function in democracy, which since 2000 they have slowly, but with ever increasing speed, now completely abdicated. They are not only complicit, but they are responsible. I loathe Orange Mussolini, but I can acknowledge that he is no longer in complete control of himself, his thoughts or what he says. But corporate media, his handlers and most of the GOP have willingly enabled and, perhaps even moved him farther to the right. I will never trust the corporate media again. #HoldCorporateMediaAccountable
Kate, I completely agree with you regarding the complicity of mass media. Very early on in 2017 the APA called out mental health experts who were warning the public against Trump's malevolent motivations. This caused the media to freeze out messages from mental health professionals who predicted every single thing that has occurred since the election of 2016. The media has continued to see him as some version of "normal," when he is the most psychologically dangerous and unfit politician since Hitler, and that's not an exaggeration. It's we the people who have to vote en masse and make sure our votes count, who are going to save democracy this time around.
I wish my mom’s best friend was still alive. She was German (not Jewish), but I would be interested to know her reaction and comparison. Her father died a year before WW2 began, but when she was 11 (1942), her mother was arrested for refusing to make or force her children to make the Nazi salute. They got out in 1944, but she was afraid to go back until the 1970s. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find people who can compare the US now with Hitler or Mussolini.
Really, Kate? Millions of mental health professionals, historians, sociologists, podcasters, and people who've worked in his administration will be happy to agree that Trump and his gang are modeling themselves after those demented dictators. You won't hear this discussed on the media except on MSNBC, so I understand your concern about how the rest of the country sees him, or rather doesn't see him. Dangerous sociopaths are clever in how they hide their underlying malevolence.
Your mom's best friend was a wise woman. Many people I know are thinking of how they can leave this country if it really falls to Trump. At least we are among the people who can recognize a vicious sociopath no matter how he conceals his true nature. Take care... I believe will make it through the rapids of this election and continue to educate the public regarding the psychopathology of abusive authoritarians.
I’m not sure how to interpret your “Really,Kate?” But I assume it is relation to find people who can compare the US now with the 1930s and 1940s. I was not clear in what I meant. I was referring to actual survivors of these regimes. Primary sources who can speak to the feelings, fears, “vibes” if you will. There are absolutely people who have studied this history as well as people who are studying or have worked for/with tRUMP. I would like to talk to people who lived through it and are now in the US. But they are, sadly, few and far between. My mom’s friend passed in 2013, but I wonder how shed would experience this. Knowing Ruth, she would be 94 years old and doing anything she could. Anyway, that is what I meant. Hearing from people who lived it but are not experts. BTW, I tend to write and speak without writing/saying the whole thing outloud. My husband finds it a bit frustrating at times. ;)
Oh…thanks for the clarification, Kate! Like you, I would like to hear, firsthand, from those who have lived under dictators. They Thought They Were Free, by Milton Mayer, is one such book. After WWII he goes back to Germany and interviews different people who had lived under Hitler. I found this very interesting and a bit disturbing for how they rationalized their behavior during that horrifying era. There’s also a documentary of two men whose fathers were Nazis. They are interviewed much later regarding how that experience was for them, as children, and how they now feel about their fathers’ role in the Holocaust. One repudiates his father’s behavior but the other still identifies as a Nazi. !!
I spoke with Ruth a lot about what it was like, but the political “environment” at the time was very different. My other regret is not asking her about being an immigrant and if she felt American and how long it took. I am a born and bred Buffalonian. But I married a Swede and have been here 22-23 years. I’m not sure how to describe the feeling, except I never feel so American as I do here and I never feel so Swedish as I do when I am visiting family in the US. I think it’s because, I’m still not totally a cultural Swede, but in the States, I’m not that American anymore. Occasionally I feel like neither fish nor fowl.
Last night's debacle isn't anywhere to be found on the NY Times web page. Why do they seem so determined to keep his obvious mental deterioration a secret? I thought maybe they had finally wised up with that Peter Baker piece, but I guess they believe that they had done their part and could now go back to both sides and Kamala's failure to give them an interview.
Peter Thiel, JD Vance's billionaire backer, and his sock puppet Vance both realize Trump's dementia is obvious, and so do most of Trump's supporters, including white, christian nationalists as well as young black and Hispanic men. IMO, they're just waiting for Trump to win the election so they can urge JD Vance to declare Trump incompetent and assume the presidency, hopefully for the next 12 years.
The music, the bobbing and weaving for 39 minutes is Grandpa sundowning. You would think that someone, somewhere cares enough about him to stop this dangerous show. He is being ridiculed and laughed at daily, but the danger to all of us is real.
This is a very thought-provoking article. When Trump was president, he was clearly being manipulated then by false flattery, so he would be even more manipulable now. And he's so far down the rabbit hole of alternate reality that he'll believe anything. He may be just a conduit of someone else's desires (Putin?), and he just transmits those desires to the Great Pumpkin Cult that worships him. By the way, it's interesting that his supporters excuse his verbal meandering as "weaving", as in "the tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."
The unmitigated gall of the Maga GOP, the insult to ALL THINKING AMERICANS to refuse to LIE about what is IN FRONT OF OUR EYES that an OLD DEMENTED LYING MONSTER is FIT to be PRESIDENT...is 1984...SICKENING bunch of cowards and cruel power mongers who will stop at NOTHING
Or is Trump keenly(😵💫) aware that nobody finds his charisma charming any more, that he can still whip SOME people up with outrageous racism or other fascist tropes but a steady diet of that stuff is toxic even to them?
Trump never was the sharpest knife in the drawer but he covered that up with his entertaining howlers. We e heard ‘em all by now so he’s raising the stakes with the full-on fascism
I’m visiting here in small-town England and have been asked many times why WE AMERICANS tolerate this hideous demagoguery (not what’s wrong with Trump). That’s the question that matters more, IMO
This is so important! It is clear to anyone paying attention that Donald Trump’s mental capacities are declining. I’m horrified to think of him being in the Oval Office. Another reason to Vote Kamala!
That is really scary information. Thank you for sharing it. I hadn't heard about the music/dance fest that the rally turned into. If memory serves correctly, I think trump made his father have him the sole beneficiary of his will. I guess it would be poetic justice if something similar happened to him. The refusal of the MSM to cover this is very short-sighted and stupid, IMO.
Excellent article this morning ☕ Dean. It's painfully obvious how far gone trump has gotten. Today will be as good as he gets, because tomorrow he'll be Worse. What gets me is all the people who prop him up and try to Normalize him?! That's pretty sick in itself. Thank You for your insight and will reStack ASAP 💯👍🇺🇲💙🌊🌊
You fucking hypocrites. That is exactly what Democrats including Dean has done for years with Biden. GFYS dumb fuck
Your readers here are not the ones who need to be convinced about this. How can you get your Substack in front of the eyes and ears who do?
Im trying my best to get bigger media to cover!!!
The powers that be are playing a very dangerous game believing they can control this idiot to get what they want. However, behavior of the demented cannot be predicted.
Also, they may have a backup plan to get Trump in, then have him removed so that Vance is in charge. Anyone who thinks these powers could not be this devious is, IMO, delusional.
Exactly what I posited as well.. Theil & Riberts ARE that devious & disgusting.
Sorry if I was stealing your idea but in my defense, I hadn’t read it before. Glad to know I’m not the only one seeing how devious these people are.
Great minds will always compliment each other. 😎😀✌️🫶💙🌊👍
Trump is puppet, not puppet master. Heritage or some other power may be puppet master, with Trump the tool to win the presidency, with Vance the end game. However they choose to remove Trump, diminished capacity, allow an impeachment or criminal cases to force him out, or other nefarious means. Hope Harris/Walz wins, and we don’t have to deal with that issue. Vance is every bit as extreme and a threat.
Please do! It’s so important.
Dean, i appreciate the interview you did with Jill Wine Banks on you tube Political Voices Network ‘s channel… please if possible more interviews with people from the World. Mental Health Coalition (their website has symposium posted in full, and a you tube channel has excerpts) thank you for all you are doing…🙏🏼
I don't know if this is of any importance really. But what I became familiar with while acting as my dads caregiver, who had dementia, is generally they love music. I was curious about this so read up on it. Evidently music is the longest lasting memory they keep. My dad would keep the radio on for as long as 12 hours a day. He was fairly calm while listening.
The Djt situation reminds me a bit of the Chauncey Gardner character played by Peter Sellers in 'Being There' -- a terribly demented, inarticulate man being elevated to a figure of worship by a willfully ignorant, 'sane-washing' public.
Except that Djt is exponentially more dangerous because of his deeply embedded racism, mysoginy and xenophobia, wrapped in the cloak of wealth.
I’ve often thought the same - what’s even more terrifying today is that Vance is waiting in the wings.
My thoughts exactly. Vance is highly ambitious and is just about salivating over the idea of being President in name or fact.
Now I want to see that movie.
Trump gets high ratings when he is on the TV. He is the bread and butter for all the media outlets and everyone knows it. He has the backing of the media owners who know further tax cuts or at least an extension of the existing ones are assured if he wins this election. They know that Trump will not impose regulations on them. ( except the news outlets which he intends to persecute) They fear him and his lawsuit threats. Even Joe Biden regrets appointing Merrick Garland as AG, ( the most timid and ineffective AG in our memory) yet he does not fire him. The judges in his many criminal proceedings have given him every possible break they can. From my point of view everyone is intimidated by Trump and his MAGA fanatics. Who is standing up for democracy? I keep looking.
Apologize for my language, but this is absolutely fucking terrifying. And the part that is most horrifying (and, I think perhaps treasonous) is the role that the corporate media has played and continues to play. The fourth estate has had a function in democracy, which since 2000 they have slowly, but with ever increasing speed, now completely abdicated. They are not only complicit, but they are responsible. I loathe Orange Mussolini, but I can acknowledge that he is no longer in complete control of himself, his thoughts or what he says. But corporate media, his handlers and most of the GOP have willingly enabled and, perhaps even moved him farther to the right. I will never trust the corporate media again. #HoldCorporateMediaAccountable
Kate, I completely agree with you regarding the complicity of mass media. Very early on in 2017 the APA called out mental health experts who were warning the public against Trump's malevolent motivations. This caused the media to freeze out messages from mental health professionals who predicted every single thing that has occurred since the election of 2016. The media has continued to see him as some version of "normal," when he is the most psychologically dangerous and unfit politician since Hitler, and that's not an exaggeration. It's we the people who have to vote en masse and make sure our votes count, who are going to save democracy this time around.
I wish my mom’s best friend was still alive. She was German (not Jewish), but I would be interested to know her reaction and comparison. Her father died a year before WW2 began, but when she was 11 (1942), her mother was arrested for refusing to make or force her children to make the Nazi salute. They got out in 1944, but she was afraid to go back until the 1970s. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find people who can compare the US now with Hitler or Mussolini.
Really, Kate? Millions of mental health professionals, historians, sociologists, podcasters, and people who've worked in his administration will be happy to agree that Trump and his gang are modeling themselves after those demented dictators. You won't hear this discussed on the media except on MSNBC, so I understand your concern about how the rest of the country sees him, or rather doesn't see him. Dangerous sociopaths are clever in how they hide their underlying malevolence.
Your mom's best friend was a wise woman. Many people I know are thinking of how they can leave this country if it really falls to Trump. At least we are among the people who can recognize a vicious sociopath no matter how he conceals his true nature. Take care... I believe will make it through the rapids of this election and continue to educate the public regarding the psychopathology of abusive authoritarians.
I’m not sure how to interpret your “Really,Kate?” But I assume it is relation to find people who can compare the US now with the 1930s and 1940s. I was not clear in what I meant. I was referring to actual survivors of these regimes. Primary sources who can speak to the feelings, fears, “vibes” if you will. There are absolutely people who have studied this history as well as people who are studying or have worked for/with tRUMP. I would like to talk to people who lived through it and are now in the US. But they are, sadly, few and far between. My mom’s friend passed in 2013, but I wonder how shed would experience this. Knowing Ruth, she would be 94 years old and doing anything she could. Anyway, that is what I meant. Hearing from people who lived it but are not experts. BTW, I tend to write and speak without writing/saying the whole thing outloud. My husband finds it a bit frustrating at times. ;)
Oh…thanks for the clarification, Kate! Like you, I would like to hear, firsthand, from those who have lived under dictators. They Thought They Were Free, by Milton Mayer, is one such book. After WWII he goes back to Germany and interviews different people who had lived under Hitler. I found this very interesting and a bit disturbing for how they rationalized their behavior during that horrifying era. There’s also a documentary of two men whose fathers were Nazis. They are interviewed much later regarding how that experience was for them, as children, and how they now feel about their fathers’ role in the Holocaust. One repudiates his father’s behavior but the other still identifies as a Nazi. !!
I spoke with Ruth a lot about what it was like, but the political “environment” at the time was very different. My other regret is not asking her about being an immigrant and if she felt American and how long it took. I am a born and bred Buffalonian. But I married a Swede and have been here 22-23 years. I’m not sure how to describe the feeling, except I never feel so American as I do here and I never feel so Swedish as I do when I am visiting family in the US. I think it’s because, I’m still not totally a cultural Swede, but in the States, I’m not that American anymore. Occasionally I feel like neither fish nor fowl.
That this is allowed to continue is a crime.
It is their PLAN. Get elected. Article 25. Install JD (Thiel, Musk). Implement Project 2025. Put DJT into a home... VOTE BLUE 💙
Last night's debacle isn't anywhere to be found on the NY Times web page. Why do they seem so determined to keep his obvious mental deterioration a secret? I thought maybe they had finally wised up with that Peter Baker piece, but I guess they believe that they had done their part and could now go back to both sides and Kamala's failure to give them an interview.
Wrong. An article was posted this morning: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/us/politics/trump-town-hall-dj-music.html
Peter Thiel, JD Vance's billionaire backer, and his sock puppet Vance both realize Trump's dementia is obvious, and so do most of Trump's supporters, including white, christian nationalists as well as young black and Hispanic men. IMO, they're just waiting for Trump to win the election so they can urge JD Vance to declare Trump incompetent and assume the presidency, hopefully for the next 12 years.
Absolutely. And it seems so obvious. Glad it's finally reaching the mainstream,.
The music, the bobbing and weaving for 39 minutes is Grandpa sundowning. You would think that someone, somewhere cares enough about him to stop this dangerous show. He is being ridiculed and laughed at daily, but the danger to all of us is real.
This is a very thought-provoking article. When Trump was president, he was clearly being manipulated then by false flattery, so he would be even more manipulable now. And he's so far down the rabbit hole of alternate reality that he'll believe anything. He may be just a conduit of someone else's desires (Putin?), and he just transmits those desires to the Great Pumpkin Cult that worships him. By the way, it's interesting that his supporters excuse his verbal meandering as "weaving", as in "the tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."
The unmitigated gall of the Maga GOP, the insult to ALL THINKING AMERICANS to refuse to LIE about what is IN FRONT OF OUR EYES that an OLD DEMENTED LYING MONSTER is FIT to be PRESIDENT...is 1984...SICKENING bunch of cowards and cruel power mongers who will stop at NOTHING
Is it (only newly) dementia?
Or is Trump keenly(😵💫) aware that nobody finds his charisma charming any more, that he can still whip SOME people up with outrageous racism or other fascist tropes but a steady diet of that stuff is toxic even to them?
Trump never was the sharpest knife in the drawer but he covered that up with his entertaining howlers. We e heard ‘em all by now so he’s raising the stakes with the full-on fascism
I’m visiting here in small-town England and have been asked many times why WE AMERICANS tolerate this hideous demagoguery (not what’s wrong with Trump). That’s the question that matters more, IMO
This is so important! It is clear to anyone paying attention that Donald Trump’s mental capacities are declining. I’m horrified to think of him being in the Oval Office. Another reason to Vote Kamala!
That is really scary information. Thank you for sharing it. I hadn't heard about the music/dance fest that the rally turned into. If memory serves correctly, I think trump made his father have him the sole beneficiary of his will. I guess it would be poetic justice if something similar happened to him. The refusal of the MSM to cover this is very short-sighted and stupid, IMO.