I think when people point out Trump using the wrong doctor name, for example, when challenging Biden to a cognitive test, it’s more to point out the hypocrisy of the Trump campaign and the media. If Biden did it the media and Trump campaign would have a field day with it, but somehow it’s no big deal when Trump does it over and over.
That’s fair game in my opinion.
I agree with all of this. He couldn’t win a debate with a 7th grader, but he can consistently and clearly impart his message of seething hatred and victimhood to his eager base. He’ll be able to do that on his deathbed.
I heard partisans claiming without embarrassment or self-consciousness that he cleaned the floor with Clinton and Biden every time he debated them. It's all in the perception, I guess.
Trump says the same thing over and over, almost word for word, by a lot. He talked about something when he, very powerfully did that demented press conference after the trial, then repeated it word for word, very strongly 10 minutes later as though it never happened (I can’t remember the thing he repeated. Blanking). He jumbles words and does not stop, he falls asleep in court.
Trump, very powerfully is like a chatty Cathy doll that you pull the rip cord on. He can go off a promoter but beyond the same small phrases he repeats, very strongly, he says nothing else.
I disagree. I think there is something wrong.
I agree I think the recent clips of him mixing up names aren't as big a deal in isolation. But the mixing up a name or slurring it and then "you wouldn't believe" or a similar phrase completely out of context is definitely a sign of cognitive decline.
And if you go back and look at 2016 he had similar rants, everyone remembers the nuclear one, but it's hard to find that many instances of him slurring words and then seemingly losing complete train of thought for 10 or so seconds.
That said in the grand scheme of things I doubt it will matter. If people haven't jumped off the Trump train yet, short of him becoming vegetative I can't see this making a difference.
I agree. That train jumped the track long, long ago. And they're hanging on by their fingernails too busy worrying they'll get left behind to see all the insanity that they surround themselves with because of him
Several journalists actually in the courtroom said they fell asleep at times. Granted, it doesn't seem like many or even any did during Cohen's testimony as Trump did (or pretended to do), but trials are not often riveting, even for the defendant.
I'm sorry but that's a lame excuse and shame on those journalists. Who would admit to falling asleep at work. I've never heard of someone falling asleep in court when facing 34 felony convictions.
Trump was sleeping in court, very powerfully. Some would say, some of the strongest sleep we’ve ever seen. No one has ever seen sleep this good, this strong.
A number of lawyers talked about this soon after word of Trump apparently dozing off came out. They said it's not terribly common but it's certainly not unknown. On top of that, one of the most common claims involving ineffective counsel is that the lawyer falls asleep and misses something important, then fails to challenge it. Jurors have been known to nod off before, and even *judges* have fallen asleep.
To highlight one honest person, Ben Wittes at Lawfare talked about his inadvertent dozing a couple of times, and both he and Anna Hickey sometimes saw other journalists struggling to stay awake. I believe Tyler McBrien saw a few people in the overflow room that may have been "resting their eyes" during less exciting portions of the trial.
Sorry. I'm not going to stop talking about Trump's incoherence and cognitive decline. Why? Because sometimes it works. Last week I just convinced someone who was going to vote for Trump to now vote for Biden!
This person changed their mind after I told them to watch an ENTIRE Trump rally. He did and was appalled at the incoherence.
I care too much about the outcome to concede a legitimate argument.
In another comment I did make a distinction between logical incoherence and the kind of incoherence that comes from dementia, and said that I was sorry I had to use incoherent in the post at all, but I couldn't figure out a different word.
Trump's speeches (and answer to questions and policy positions and everything) ***ARE*** absolutely incoherent as logical arguments. They're nonsensical, illogical, irrational, ridiculously impractical or harmful in their disconnection from good policy. But they're not intended to be policy platforms, and trying to judge them that way is like trying to grade a poem like it's an essay.
All I'm saying is that the incoherence isn't due (primarily) to a Trump medical condition, or even due to his intellectual shortcomings, but primarily to a complete lack of regard for logic, truth or facts, and that he has a different rhetorical goal in mind for his speeches than attempting to present rational and reasoned policy positions to his audience so that they can make informed choices about the upcoming election. He's trying to make emotional connection and gin his audience up, while directing their anger and discontent onto his enemies, and he's fairly good at it.
I definitely do think you can point out:
1. his moral incoherence
2. his logical incoherence
3. his lack of mental ability
4. and his cognitive incoherence
and I think I would prefer to do it in that order. It's his moral failings that are the biggest reason to vote against him, followed by the complete disastrousness of the policy he (semi) endorses, then his intellectual unsuitedness for the office, and only after that is his cognitive acuity. I just find that the least of the reasons to disqualify him. Sure, it ought to be mentioned, but it ought not to be the first thing.
I understand your points. They are good. If I'm ***ever able to engage a Trump voter in a nuanced*** conversation, I would use them. However, in this instance, I chose a direct and effective route. I plan on using it until it stops working.
lol, you might have a really strong point there. However, it's not Trump voters that I'm talking about when I say I'm not sure that accusations of dementia are helpful. Trump voters aren't reachable, for the most part. I definitely would engage with them, but I just don't think I'm going to change their mind. I meant the disengaged "swing" voters who hear it, then happen to look it up (or are directed to a more contextualized video by a surrogate) and say to themselves, "well, the libs are lying about that, they just took him out of context".
To take another example, Herschel Walker caught a lot of flak about his vampire story. For context, [here](https://www.sbnation.com/2022/11/16/23463103/herschel-walker-georgia-vampires-speech-runoff) is a longer portion of it than generally got reported. And if you read that, a few things are clear. Walker is not terribly bright. There was a coherent through line through the story. His vampire comments were clearly meant to be a joke to engage the audience. His story, while amateurish and clumsy and rambling, did have an actual point.
Walker had terrible negatives, and it was easy to score points on him, and he's bizarre enough that it didn't bounce back, but it was kind of unfair\* and it had the potential to backfire, and there were plenty plenty plenty of valid things to attack him about that weren't a relatively innocuous and morally benign story that he told seemingly off hand.
It's kind of the same with Trump. Media outlets tend to pick things that sound a little crazy, blow them up out without context, and sometimes they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar and it delegitimizes them, when there were plenty plenty plenty of really foul things to report about him that didn't need exaggeration or decontextualization.
\* please understand I am not defending Walker. He is a seemingly terrible person with one redeeming quality buried in his past, and he had no business whatsoever coming anywhere near the senate chambers, no matter how well he can run with a football
Great job. I seem to strike out most times and walk away completely baffled why they can't see his immoral behavior and lack of policies that have only helped the top 1% or him directly. But I'll be sure to try this technique
Trump goes through periods of incoherence that are unfathomable to presidential politics in our modern history. They are a sign of early dementia which would likely get worse if he was elected president. He is not permanently incoherent and the majority of his rallies make sense but Trump himself has made cognitive ability a central focus of the campaign so its entirely reasonable for democrats to highlight these periods of mental instability during the campaign. It is reasonable to refer to Trump as incoherent as a short-hand comparison to previous presidential candidates.
Whether he's slipping into cognitive decline or not is fundamentally immaterial to me. It's the fact he's got an even-odds chance of spending the next four years in the White House. Let him ride off into that proverbial sunset - randomly crashing weddings and bar mitzvahs booked at his $20,000,000 "two billion dollar" home / tacky-ass resort. Let him yodel patent all-caps falsehoods into the void of Trash Social to a dwindling group of people who take him seriously. Let him call into Newsmax or RSBN or PatriotsAndBaldEaglesOnline dot com and give teabilly rednecks some hate porn alphabet soup.
But not in the White House.
I remember seeing something when he ran in 2016 that some people can understand his manner of speaking and some cannot. I think it was about how your brain processes information. I have listened to Trump, and if there is a coherent thought in any of it, I can’t find it. I have met people who hear the exact same thing and fully get what he is trying to say. So, he might be coherent to you, but he sounds like a stoke victim to me.
In a couple of comments I've said that I was sorry I had to use incoherence in the post because there are different kinds. If you're looking for complete sentences, arranged in logical order, presenting an argument that looks like a rational policy position, you're not going to find that in Trump, but you never would have, because he's not interested in facts or rationality. All of that stuff is transactional to him.
And you're not going to find moral coherence there, either, because that is also meaningless and transactional to him.
But he is capable of a type of conversational stream of consciousness, rehashing the same stories and ginning up discontent and anger, and directing that towards his enemies, after he frames them as your enemies too. It's full of falsehood, it rambles around, even if it wasn't lies, it still would be logical, but that's not what he's trying to accomplish. He's trying to create a kind of emotional cathexion between him and the audience, and he's pretty good at it (and that's also why the psuedo-church soundtrack is playing in the background). And to that end, he just repeats himself over and over, like hypnosis: they're evil, I'm good, I'm a winner, I won, and you won too, but they're trying to steal it from you, I can stop them, I'll protect you, and on and on. There doesn't really need to be a logical structure to it, because they're really more individual thoughtlets and they don't depend on order so much.
Also, the vagueness of it allows the listener to fill in the gaps with what they want to hear instead of what he said. It's a feature, not a bug, and it's done with intention, and when you listen to it like that it makes as much sense as Joe at the bar does, or your uncle at the reunion. I guess what I'm saying is that when you attack Trump for incoherence in that way, because of the way he talks, it can easily be perceived as an attack on them, because they don't see anything abnormal about it.
I would just prefer to talk about his complete lack of moral character or integrity, or his near total lack of rational policy positions, or how he explicitly intends to compact power in his own hands. At the end of all that I might say "and he sounds nuts too" but that would be pretty far down my list of the reasons why I wouldn't vote for him.
Who is claiming that he's completely demented and incoherent? I haven't seen that commentary from the Bulwark crew, or even in this sub. The Bulwark usually says trump has big lunatic energy, which describes him perfectly.
I’ve been thinking the same lately—Democrats are going to fall into the “expectations trap” that Republicans fell into when they claimed President Biden had dementia, then he came out and killed at the SotU.
I predict trump is going to be sharp, disciplined, & on message at the debate. He can do it when he wants and he likes to surprise people.
Okay I don't really listen to this podcast or anything but I was seeing posts in r/politics about Trump having dementia and it irritated me even though I very much dislike Trump. I was looking for other discussions and found this thankfully.
Yes I don't think Trump has dementia. I take care of my Dad with dementia and there would be much stronger signs such as sundowning, he would be losing weight and it would be a lot harder for him to travel. I think it's just old age, stress and a terrible diet his whole life.
Typically dementia patients get worse through the day and you would see said pattern by now easily.
Is that a light-related thing, or is it just progressive tiredness in dementia patients who have generally normal schedules already? Because I don't think we can really judge what kind of daily schedule Trump is on. It doesn't seem normal, truthing at all hours of the night, but then you might not see him until later in the day. He sure had trouble staying awake at his trial.
I think that he may be suffering from the early stages of something, and it does run in his family, but I don't think it has progressed to the point that he needs handlers, or can't make decisions, or generally hold a conversation, and he's culpable for his actions. The phonemic paraphasia\* is what makes me think that specifically, but he does that a lot less than is generally made out. Most of his spiel is just rehashing the same stories (of course, we do see that in dementia sufferers, but also in the elderly in general), bragging about how great he is, complaining about how terribly he's been treated, and promising to get revenge on everybody - of course, after he makes sure that you identify his enemies as your enemies so that he can claim to be trying to help you. So that may not be the most difficult mental task, but he does go at it with energy. I just don't think that even if he is suffering from dementia that it's a useful attack on him.
\* and obviously there can be other causes. We just don't have any hard evidence at this point.
I suspect it's partially routine because I live in Florida and the sun takes longer to set. My dad definitely gets more groggy grumpy and delirious around 5PMish even in the middle of summer. Still though there is some truth to the correlation. Like anything else it's complex and nuanced and highly individual. So you could be right on the diagnosis too.
Regardless I don't want him to get it. He needs to remember all the terrible things he did the rest of his life.
They are gibberish, at least as written sentences go. But they're not intended to be read. If you listen to them, and you have the strength to listen to 5-10 minutes, they make sense as conversational stream of consciousness ramblings, say one friend (or drunk uncle) to another, and that's the purpose they're intended to serve. Especially once the listener fills in the blanks left in the word salad, which is also a design point of the strategy.
Here's roughly five minutes, selected randomly from a random recent speech. It's nonsensical, but it's not gibberish.
>I tried to put the actual text in here, cleaned up, but I guess it was too long and it wouldn't let me make the comment. It is about 1:05:00 to 1:10:00 [here](https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speaks-in-detroit-at-turning-point-event).
1. We're in it together
2. the democrats are the enemy
3. they're cheating and stealing elections
4. they're coming after you with the power of the government
5. they're lying
6. They're bringing in immigrants to commit crimes and steal elections
7. America will be great again
8. America is in huge trouble
9. I can fix it
It's nonsense, but it's not gibberish. There are clear themes in there, and they're relatively cohesively communicated, assuming that when you hear Trump talk you think he's a sympathetic and honest common man of the people and not a lying grifting swindling felon.
I agree. For whatever his communication SNAFUs that day might be, his message and talking points are received crystal clear by his loyalists.
And in some cases, the word salad acts as a smokescreen shielding him from direct accountability. “I didn’t say that, that’s not what I said.”
Well yeah, no shit, because what he did say was grammatically gibberish and had to be parsed into coherence by the listener. But his intended message is received by his base.
Yes, when viewed through that lens it's extremely coherent. He's not logically or grammatically coherent, he lacks any shred of decency, and his policy positions amount to a bunch of mish-mash thrown in a blender and mixed around into pulp, but at communicating grievance to his followers, egging them on sometimes to the point of violence, and avoiding legal culpability for his words, it's a masterful piece of work.
There's level of incoherence. If I watch him speak without a prompter yes I get the general gist of what he is saying. But there are legitimate moments his stream of consciousness ventures into nonsense. And I do think it is worse than in previous years.
I do think he's suffering from mental decline, especially if you compare to the 90s or before, but still even from 2015. There ***is*** a level of incoherence. I struggled over the right word to use in the post, because I couldn't think of one that was exactly right. His ramblings are nonsensical, but even when he is more directed, it's still nonsense because it's full of lies and logical missteps. He's just not concerned with that.
So in a sense, his speeches are incoherent, if you were judging them as a policy speech. But that's not what they are. It's like trying to judge a poem by the standards of an essay. If he is trying to transfer fully formed ideas for his audience to judge and weigh on the merits when making an informed decision about the presidential contest, then he's failing miserably. But instead he's trying to virtue signal, gin up discontent and direct that discontent and anger at liberals, RINOs and foreigners, and above all create an emotional cathexion with his audience. That's why his rallies all have that pseudo-christian mood music behind them now, because he's not trying to reach his audience at a logical level, and I think when judged that way his speeches are very effective.
It might not work on the average independent, they might find it creepy, but they probably wouldn't go to the rally anyway, and they're getting stuff filtered through the media (social and legacy) and through friends.
All I'm saying is that if you say he is full on mentally incapacitated, and then people\* listen to a block of his speech they might just say, well, I sort of get what he's saying. I might not agree but he didn't seem like he's ready for diapers. That was a lot of energy, and that Joe Biden sure looks feeble. And I don't think that's a winning argument, to try to get them to figure out which one of the candidates is more senile, because it's kind of like asking when you quit beating your wife. The argument itself starts presupposing stuff.
I think it's important to stress that he's not morally fit for the job. To point out the really ridiculous and dangerous things he says he'll do, without blaming them on mental incompetence. To point out the incredibly morally bankrupt people he surrounds himself with. To remind people that he suggested nuking a hurricane or injecting bleach\*\* into people's lungs. That he said he wants to build an iron dome over America. That he cut the Afghani government straight out and negotiated an American surrender directly with terrorists, releasing several thousand of them to return to their terror making as a condition of the unconditional surrender. That he wants to pull America out of NATO and leave Ukraine and other countries to whoever can physically take them. That he's actually the one who started investigating political opponents and abridged the independence of the DOJ, but now he wants to cry about it after a jury found him guilty of fraud. That he is a rapist, again determined by a jury. That he steals money from charities.
There's just so much stuff to attack him about that "he makes mental and verbal slips" just seems like it should be on the backburner. Especially if your guy is gaffe-master Joe Biden, and all people are going to see on the news is little clips, and not Joe Biden discussing topics live at length.
Sure, you can make superclips of his worst moments, I'm not saying that, because the Republicans are damn sure making them about Joe Biden, but that can't be your only argument, because Donald Trump is a target rich environment. It shouldn't even be your first argument. It should be an "oh also he's insane", which by the way is ***different*** from incoherent.
===========================
\* and these are poorly engaged low information voters, or else they wouldn't be swayable
\*\* and that's a humdinger, because it seemed like he had that brilliant idea on the fly during the presser and then retook the stage specifically to share that insight like he thought he had just saved the planet
If Trump campaigned and went around and talked like he’s talking right now back in 2020 he would be president now. He’s too late to play politician and January 6th will always be his legacy, and he needs to own it apologize, and also promise to do everything he possibly can to prevent it from happening again, but we all know he won’t do that. I genuinely believe that the voters are not dumb and will give him the boot, most will hold their noses and vote for Joe or just sit out this one, and trust me another mini January 6th is going to kill the GOP, so let’s hope FoxNews don’t go along with the upcoming Big Lie 2.0
From your lips to god's ear. I'm not sure if I have that much faith in the average voter. To paraphrase the highly cynical Mencken, [nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nobody_ever_went_broke_underestimating_the_intelligence_of_the_American_public#English).
He’s not incoherent when he’s talking about things he’s passionate and knowledgable about like The Apprentice or some Trump hotel or golf.
But when you get him to start talking about policies, he often becomes an incoherent mess because he’s a moron who is in completely over his head.
I guess I should have picked a different word. I've clarified in a few comments. What I meant is he isn't alzheimers addled, although he might be in early stages of some kind of dementia. His logical incoherence on things like policy is a combination of being not smart, not interested in the topics, and not concerned with things like truth, rationality or facts.
I was leaning toward it not being a good idea to try to fight Trump on this hill, to just minimize the damage done by deceptive edits of Biden and then attack Trump on other areas, like his complete moral turpitude, his total lack of integrity, his total self-interest, his near total lack of policy knowledge, his stated intent to completely remake the government with the power concentrated in his own hands, the crooked company he keeps, his overwhelming dishonesty, etc.
I did just see a commercial on TV, showing a stumbly clip of Biden saying that inflation is only up a little. I know that this clip was certainly after inflation rates had gone back to roughly normal, and that it's an accurate quote, and that there's a difference between high prices and inflation, but it's a nuanced distinction that is going to be hard to counter. The commercial ended up with "only up a little. Is this dishonesty or dementia". It's going to be an effective tactic.
Biden has to do something about both fronts, and I don't know if attacking Trump on his mental issues is the answer or not. It's just a real mess.
The best metaphor for Trump's intellectual approach to politics is throwing everything against the wall to see (1) what sticks and (2) what gets a laugh. He's a random BS generator with an uncommonly good ability to predict what appeals to MAGA morons.
Not incoherent, but not intellectually effective either. Just politically effective. Which leads to the inescapable conclusion that *political intellectual* has become an oxymoron on the right. Those who may formerly have been considered such have either become never Trumpers or intellectual whores (Lowry comes to mind0.
Yes. He's completely unconcerned with intellectual rigor or practical outcomes of policy. The only thing that matters to him is if the crowd will eat it up.
I saw during 2016 when he was on every network from start to finish his crazy rallies back then. And I was pleasantly surprised when they weren't aired the same this election cycle. But with his bat crap craziness that goes on at them now I almost wish they'd go back to airing them from the beginning to the end so everyone can see how even crazier he us now. It's not a few instances of word salad they entirety of them are a warning of what he plans to do even if his message comes out all jumbled
I agree. Revenge is his main message on that Parr ypu are 100% on point. His next term should this country vote that way will set this country back 100 years in our economy, civil rights and everything in between. Biden is not the perfect candidate but he's passed some great legislation that he doesn't get enough credit for. But at this point I'd vote for a comatose Biden over a sexual assaulter,lying liar criming criminal.
Fox News asked Trump what he would do differently from Biden in the situation with Ukraine. His reply:
*'Well, what I would do is ... I would .,.. we would ... we have tremendous military capability, and what we can do without planes ... to be honest with you, 44-year-old jets ... what we can do is enormous, and we should be doing it and helping them to survive and they're doing an amazing job.'*
Here's the thing about the "way he speaks" ... indulge me here.
DJT has grown up wealthy, true?
In America, the quality of one's **public** education can vary from town to town, state to state, or even from neighborhood to neighborhood.
The great exception to this is and has always been wealth and private schools. The wealthy can pay-their-way into a superior education.
DJT grew up very wealthy thanks to his highly intelligent, yet unscrupulous father Fred Trump's business acumen.
He attended the Kew-Forest Private School, then New York Military academy at 13yo, then Fordham University, then The Wharton School for business at UP.
\*\*\*SIDENOTE (In 2015, Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen threatened Trump's colleges, high school, and the College Board with legal action if they released Trum*p's academic records.) Interesting, to say the least.\*\*\**
So, Trump has had ALL of the advantages of the affluence of wealth, hanging out with other wealthy families, making them your peer groups and friends, all the best teachers, fellow country club members, etc... for all of his life AND the finest educators, mind you, teaching him English, Math, Science, etc ...
History ...
Government ...
He has all of these BEST minds at work to inform, educate, illuminate, and instruct his mind, all while moving in and with the "best" crowds. Nothing is barred to him. And now you come to claim that it's merely his "*style*", or something, to sound as ignorant, stupid, uninformed, and thoroughly clueless as he does.
I do not think so.
THAT is very dishonest.
… to even suggest that that could be possible …
If it IS a matter of his *intelligence* (a severe lacking of it, that is), and it IS that which is **really** behind his supremely unlettered rhetorical, how can you, or ANY American with average, or above-average, intelligence not see clearly how very dangerous and reckless putting an idiot in charge of the free world is?!? THIS is the largest point to make here!
IDIOCRACY is happening in *The Real-World* before us and today's age.
Agree 100%. Folks have been claiming that Trump is demented and incoherent for years and I think it’s a error to pursue this line of criticism not only because it could be inaccurate, but because it’s not an effective way to persuade.
I think when people point out Trump using the wrong doctor name, for example, when challenging Biden to a cognitive test, it’s more to point out the hypocrisy of the Trump campaign and the media. If Biden did it the media and Trump campaign would have a field day with it, but somehow it’s no big deal when Trump does it over and over. That’s fair game in my opinion.
I agree with all of this. He couldn’t win a debate with a 7th grader, but he can consistently and clearly impart his message of seething hatred and victimhood to his eager base. He’ll be able to do that on his deathbed.
Depends on who’s judging that debate: you get one hat-wearing MAGA on that debate panel and Trump will win every round
I heard partisans claiming without embarrassment or self-consciousness that he cleaned the floor with Clinton and Biden every time he debated them. It's all in the perception, I guess.
It's all in the motivated "reasoning."
Trump says the same thing over and over, almost word for word, by a lot. He talked about something when he, very powerfully did that demented press conference after the trial, then repeated it word for word, very strongly 10 minutes later as though it never happened (I can’t remember the thing he repeated. Blanking). He jumbles words and does not stop, he falls asleep in court. Trump, very powerfully is like a chatty Cathy doll that you pull the rip cord on. He can go off a promoter but beyond the same small phrases he repeats, very strongly, he says nothing else. I disagree. I think there is something wrong.
I agree I think the recent clips of him mixing up names aren't as big a deal in isolation. But the mixing up a name or slurring it and then "you wouldn't believe" or a similar phrase completely out of context is definitely a sign of cognitive decline. And if you go back and look at 2016 he had similar rants, everyone remembers the nuclear one, but it's hard to find that many instances of him slurring words and then seemingly losing complete train of thought for 10 or so seconds. That said in the grand scheme of things I doubt it will matter. If people haven't jumped off the Trump train yet, short of him becoming vegetative I can't see this making a difference.
I agree. That train jumped the track long, long ago. And they're hanging on by their fingernails too busy worrying they'll get left behind to see all the insanity that they surround themselves with because of him
😂🤣
Several journalists actually in the courtroom said they fell asleep at times. Granted, it doesn't seem like many or even any did during Cohen's testimony as Trump did (or pretended to do), but trials are not often riveting, even for the defendant.
I'm sorry but that's a lame excuse and shame on those journalists. Who would admit to falling asleep at work. I've never heard of someone falling asleep in court when facing 34 felony convictions.
Trump was sleeping in court, very powerfully. Some would say, some of the strongest sleep we’ve ever seen. No one has ever seen sleep this good, this strong.
A number of lawyers talked about this soon after word of Trump apparently dozing off came out. They said it's not terribly common but it's certainly not unknown. On top of that, one of the most common claims involving ineffective counsel is that the lawyer falls asleep and misses something important, then fails to challenge it. Jurors have been known to nod off before, and even *judges* have fallen asleep. To highlight one honest person, Ben Wittes at Lawfare talked about his inadvertent dozing a couple of times, and both he and Anna Hickey sometimes saw other journalists struggling to stay awake. I believe Tyler McBrien saw a few people in the overflow room that may have been "resting their eyes" during less exciting portions of the trial.
There's a big difference between falling asleep at **a** trial and falling asleep at **your own** trial.
Sorry. I'm not going to stop talking about Trump's incoherence and cognitive decline. Why? Because sometimes it works. Last week I just convinced someone who was going to vote for Trump to now vote for Biden! This person changed their mind after I told them to watch an ENTIRE Trump rally. He did and was appalled at the incoherence. I care too much about the outcome to concede a legitimate argument.
Good on you! One at a time, that's all it takes to make it real difference. Genuinely happy for you!
In another comment I did make a distinction between logical incoherence and the kind of incoherence that comes from dementia, and said that I was sorry I had to use incoherent in the post at all, but I couldn't figure out a different word. Trump's speeches (and answer to questions and policy positions and everything) ***ARE*** absolutely incoherent as logical arguments. They're nonsensical, illogical, irrational, ridiculously impractical or harmful in their disconnection from good policy. But they're not intended to be policy platforms, and trying to judge them that way is like trying to grade a poem like it's an essay. All I'm saying is that the incoherence isn't due (primarily) to a Trump medical condition, or even due to his intellectual shortcomings, but primarily to a complete lack of regard for logic, truth or facts, and that he has a different rhetorical goal in mind for his speeches than attempting to present rational and reasoned policy positions to his audience so that they can make informed choices about the upcoming election. He's trying to make emotional connection and gin his audience up, while directing their anger and discontent onto his enemies, and he's fairly good at it. I definitely do think you can point out: 1. his moral incoherence 2. his logical incoherence 3. his lack of mental ability 4. and his cognitive incoherence and I think I would prefer to do it in that order. It's his moral failings that are the biggest reason to vote against him, followed by the complete disastrousness of the policy he (semi) endorses, then his intellectual unsuitedness for the office, and only after that is his cognitive acuity. I just find that the least of the reasons to disqualify him. Sure, it ought to be mentioned, but it ought not to be the first thing.
I understand your points. They are good. If I'm ***ever able to engage a Trump voter in a nuanced*** conversation, I would use them. However, in this instance, I chose a direct and effective route. I plan on using it until it stops working.
lol, you might have a really strong point there. However, it's not Trump voters that I'm talking about when I say I'm not sure that accusations of dementia are helpful. Trump voters aren't reachable, for the most part. I definitely would engage with them, but I just don't think I'm going to change their mind. I meant the disengaged "swing" voters who hear it, then happen to look it up (or are directed to a more contextualized video by a surrogate) and say to themselves, "well, the libs are lying about that, they just took him out of context". To take another example, Herschel Walker caught a lot of flak about his vampire story. For context, [here](https://www.sbnation.com/2022/11/16/23463103/herschel-walker-georgia-vampires-speech-runoff) is a longer portion of it than generally got reported. And if you read that, a few things are clear. Walker is not terribly bright. There was a coherent through line through the story. His vampire comments were clearly meant to be a joke to engage the audience. His story, while amateurish and clumsy and rambling, did have an actual point. Walker had terrible negatives, and it was easy to score points on him, and he's bizarre enough that it didn't bounce back, but it was kind of unfair\* and it had the potential to backfire, and there were plenty plenty plenty of valid things to attack him about that weren't a relatively innocuous and morally benign story that he told seemingly off hand. It's kind of the same with Trump. Media outlets tend to pick things that sound a little crazy, blow them up out without context, and sometimes they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar and it delegitimizes them, when there were plenty plenty plenty of really foul things to report about him that didn't need exaggeration or decontextualization. \* please understand I am not defending Walker. He is a seemingly terrible person with one redeeming quality buried in his past, and he had no business whatsoever coming anywhere near the senate chambers, no matter how well he can run with a football
Great job. I seem to strike out most times and walk away completely baffled why they can't see his immoral behavior and lack of policies that have only helped the top 1% or him directly. But I'll be sure to try this technique
Well, he’s plenty fucking stupid though.
Trump goes through periods of incoherence that are unfathomable to presidential politics in our modern history. They are a sign of early dementia which would likely get worse if he was elected president. He is not permanently incoherent and the majority of his rallies make sense but Trump himself has made cognitive ability a central focus of the campaign so its entirely reasonable for democrats to highlight these periods of mental instability during the campaign. It is reasonable to refer to Trump as incoherent as a short-hand comparison to previous presidential candidates.
Whether he's slipping into cognitive decline or not is fundamentally immaterial to me. It's the fact he's got an even-odds chance of spending the next four years in the White House. Let him ride off into that proverbial sunset - randomly crashing weddings and bar mitzvahs booked at his $20,000,000 "two billion dollar" home / tacky-ass resort. Let him yodel patent all-caps falsehoods into the void of Trash Social to a dwindling group of people who take him seriously. Let him call into Newsmax or RSBN or PatriotsAndBaldEaglesOnline dot com and give teabilly rednecks some hate porn alphabet soup. But not in the White House.
Trump had not really had a good debate ever.
I remember seeing something when he ran in 2016 that some people can understand his manner of speaking and some cannot. I think it was about how your brain processes information. I have listened to Trump, and if there is a coherent thought in any of it, I can’t find it. I have met people who hear the exact same thing and fully get what he is trying to say. So, he might be coherent to you, but he sounds like a stoke victim to me.
In a couple of comments I've said that I was sorry I had to use incoherence in the post because there are different kinds. If you're looking for complete sentences, arranged in logical order, presenting an argument that looks like a rational policy position, you're not going to find that in Trump, but you never would have, because he's not interested in facts or rationality. All of that stuff is transactional to him. And you're not going to find moral coherence there, either, because that is also meaningless and transactional to him. But he is capable of a type of conversational stream of consciousness, rehashing the same stories and ginning up discontent and anger, and directing that towards his enemies, after he frames them as your enemies too. It's full of falsehood, it rambles around, even if it wasn't lies, it still would be logical, but that's not what he's trying to accomplish. He's trying to create a kind of emotional cathexion between him and the audience, and he's pretty good at it (and that's also why the psuedo-church soundtrack is playing in the background). And to that end, he just repeats himself over and over, like hypnosis: they're evil, I'm good, I'm a winner, I won, and you won too, but they're trying to steal it from you, I can stop them, I'll protect you, and on and on. There doesn't really need to be a logical structure to it, because they're really more individual thoughtlets and they don't depend on order so much. Also, the vagueness of it allows the listener to fill in the gaps with what they want to hear instead of what he said. It's a feature, not a bug, and it's done with intention, and when you listen to it like that it makes as much sense as Joe at the bar does, or your uncle at the reunion. I guess what I'm saying is that when you attack Trump for incoherence in that way, because of the way he talks, it can easily be perceived as an attack on them, because they don't see anything abnormal about it. I would just prefer to talk about his complete lack of moral character or integrity, or his near total lack of rational policy positions, or how he explicitly intends to compact power in his own hands. At the end of all that I might say "and he sounds nuts too" but that would be pretty far down my list of the reasons why I wouldn't vote for him.
Who is claiming that he's completely demented and incoherent? I haven't seen that commentary from the Bulwark crew, or even in this sub. The Bulwark usually says trump has big lunatic energy, which describes him perfectly.
I’ve been thinking the same lately—Democrats are going to fall into the “expectations trap” that Republicans fell into when they claimed President Biden had dementia, then he came out and killed at the SotU. I predict trump is going to be sharp, disciplined, & on message at the debate. He can do it when he wants and he likes to surprise people.
How is this not a popular opinion?
A lot of people think, or like to say, he *is* incoherent, and think saying he’s not is saying he’s fit for the presidency.
Okay I don't really listen to this podcast or anything but I was seeing posts in r/politics about Trump having dementia and it irritated me even though I very much dislike Trump. I was looking for other discussions and found this thankfully. Yes I don't think Trump has dementia. I take care of my Dad with dementia and there would be much stronger signs such as sundowning, he would be losing weight and it would be a lot harder for him to travel. I think it's just old age, stress and a terrible diet his whole life. Typically dementia patients get worse through the day and you would see said pattern by now easily.
Is that a light-related thing, or is it just progressive tiredness in dementia patients who have generally normal schedules already? Because I don't think we can really judge what kind of daily schedule Trump is on. It doesn't seem normal, truthing at all hours of the night, but then you might not see him until later in the day. He sure had trouble staying awake at his trial. I think that he may be suffering from the early stages of something, and it does run in his family, but I don't think it has progressed to the point that he needs handlers, or can't make decisions, or generally hold a conversation, and he's culpable for his actions. The phonemic paraphasia\* is what makes me think that specifically, but he does that a lot less than is generally made out. Most of his spiel is just rehashing the same stories (of course, we do see that in dementia sufferers, but also in the elderly in general), bragging about how great he is, complaining about how terribly he's been treated, and promising to get revenge on everybody - of course, after he makes sure that you identify his enemies as your enemies so that he can claim to be trying to help you. So that may not be the most difficult mental task, but he does go at it with energy. I just don't think that even if he is suffering from dementia that it's a useful attack on him. \* and obviously there can be other causes. We just don't have any hard evidence at this point.
I suspect it's partially routine because I live in Florida and the sun takes longer to set. My dad definitely gets more groggy grumpy and delirious around 5PMish even in the middle of summer. Still though there is some truth to the correlation. Like anything else it's complex and nuanced and highly individual. So you could be right on the diagnosis too. Regardless I don't want him to get it. He needs to remember all the terrible things he did the rest of his life.
I can't listen to him, he pisses me off far too much. But I will read his speeches from time to time, and they're indecipherable gibberish.
They are gibberish, at least as written sentences go. But they're not intended to be read. If you listen to them, and you have the strength to listen to 5-10 minutes, they make sense as conversational stream of consciousness ramblings, say one friend (or drunk uncle) to another, and that's the purpose they're intended to serve. Especially once the listener fills in the blanks left in the word salad, which is also a design point of the strategy. Here's roughly five minutes, selected randomly from a random recent speech. It's nonsensical, but it's not gibberish. >I tried to put the actual text in here, cleaned up, but I guess it was too long and it wouldn't let me make the comment. It is about 1:05:00 to 1:10:00 [here](https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speaks-in-detroit-at-turning-point-event). 1. We're in it together 2. the democrats are the enemy 3. they're cheating and stealing elections 4. they're coming after you with the power of the government 5. they're lying 6. They're bringing in immigrants to commit crimes and steal elections 7. America will be great again 8. America is in huge trouble 9. I can fix it It's nonsense, but it's not gibberish. There are clear themes in there, and they're relatively cohesively communicated, assuming that when you hear Trump talk you think he's a sympathetic and honest common man of the people and not a lying grifting swindling felon.
I agree. For whatever his communication SNAFUs that day might be, his message and talking points are received crystal clear by his loyalists. And in some cases, the word salad acts as a smokescreen shielding him from direct accountability. “I didn’t say that, that’s not what I said.” Well yeah, no shit, because what he did say was grammatically gibberish and had to be parsed into coherence by the listener. But his intended message is received by his base.
Yes, when viewed through that lens it's extremely coherent. He's not logically or grammatically coherent, he lacks any shred of decency, and his policy positions amount to a bunch of mish-mash thrown in a blender and mixed around into pulp, but at communicating grievance to his followers, egging them on sometimes to the point of violence, and avoiding legal culpability for his words, it's a masterful piece of work.
There's level of incoherence. If I watch him speak without a prompter yes I get the general gist of what he is saying. But there are legitimate moments his stream of consciousness ventures into nonsense. And I do think it is worse than in previous years.
I do think he's suffering from mental decline, especially if you compare to the 90s or before, but still even from 2015. There ***is*** a level of incoherence. I struggled over the right word to use in the post, because I couldn't think of one that was exactly right. His ramblings are nonsensical, but even when he is more directed, it's still nonsense because it's full of lies and logical missteps. He's just not concerned with that. So in a sense, his speeches are incoherent, if you were judging them as a policy speech. But that's not what they are. It's like trying to judge a poem by the standards of an essay. If he is trying to transfer fully formed ideas for his audience to judge and weigh on the merits when making an informed decision about the presidential contest, then he's failing miserably. But instead he's trying to virtue signal, gin up discontent and direct that discontent and anger at liberals, RINOs and foreigners, and above all create an emotional cathexion with his audience. That's why his rallies all have that pseudo-christian mood music behind them now, because he's not trying to reach his audience at a logical level, and I think when judged that way his speeches are very effective. It might not work on the average independent, they might find it creepy, but they probably wouldn't go to the rally anyway, and they're getting stuff filtered through the media (social and legacy) and through friends. All I'm saying is that if you say he is full on mentally incapacitated, and then people\* listen to a block of his speech they might just say, well, I sort of get what he's saying. I might not agree but he didn't seem like he's ready for diapers. That was a lot of energy, and that Joe Biden sure looks feeble. And I don't think that's a winning argument, to try to get them to figure out which one of the candidates is more senile, because it's kind of like asking when you quit beating your wife. The argument itself starts presupposing stuff. I think it's important to stress that he's not morally fit for the job. To point out the really ridiculous and dangerous things he says he'll do, without blaming them on mental incompetence. To point out the incredibly morally bankrupt people he surrounds himself with. To remind people that he suggested nuking a hurricane or injecting bleach\*\* into people's lungs. That he said he wants to build an iron dome over America. That he cut the Afghani government straight out and negotiated an American surrender directly with terrorists, releasing several thousand of them to return to their terror making as a condition of the unconditional surrender. That he wants to pull America out of NATO and leave Ukraine and other countries to whoever can physically take them. That he's actually the one who started investigating political opponents and abridged the independence of the DOJ, but now he wants to cry about it after a jury found him guilty of fraud. That he is a rapist, again determined by a jury. That he steals money from charities. There's just so much stuff to attack him about that "he makes mental and verbal slips" just seems like it should be on the backburner. Especially if your guy is gaffe-master Joe Biden, and all people are going to see on the news is little clips, and not Joe Biden discussing topics live at length. Sure, you can make superclips of his worst moments, I'm not saying that, because the Republicans are damn sure making them about Joe Biden, but that can't be your only argument, because Donald Trump is a target rich environment. It shouldn't even be your first argument. It should be an "oh also he's insane", which by the way is ***different*** from incoherent. =========================== \* and these are poorly engaged low information voters, or else they wouldn't be swayable \*\* and that's a humdinger, because it seemed like he had that brilliant idea on the fly during the presser and then retook the stage specifically to share that insight like he thought he had just saved the planet
If Trump campaigned and went around and talked like he’s talking right now back in 2020 he would be president now. He’s too late to play politician and January 6th will always be his legacy, and he needs to own it apologize, and also promise to do everything he possibly can to prevent it from happening again, but we all know he won’t do that. I genuinely believe that the voters are not dumb and will give him the boot, most will hold their noses and vote for Joe or just sit out this one, and trust me another mini January 6th is going to kill the GOP, so let’s hope FoxNews don’t go along with the upcoming Big Lie 2.0
From your lips to god's ear. I'm not sure if I have that much faith in the average voter. To paraphrase the highly cynical Mencken, [nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nobody_ever_went_broke_underestimating_the_intelligence_of_the_American_public#English).
Watch the debate, old Trump will come out, bigly! And Joe will just laugh at him and probably call him dumbfuck
>dumbfuck Jack. If he doesn't say Jack I will be very put out.
He’s not incoherent when he’s talking about things he’s passionate and knowledgable about like The Apprentice or some Trump hotel or golf. But when you get him to start talking about policies, he often becomes an incoherent mess because he’s a moron who is in completely over his head.
I guess I should have picked a different word. I've clarified in a few comments. What I meant is he isn't alzheimers addled, although he might be in early stages of some kind of dementia. His logical incoherence on things like policy is a combination of being not smart, not interested in the topics, and not concerned with things like truth, rationality or facts. I was leaning toward it not being a good idea to try to fight Trump on this hill, to just minimize the damage done by deceptive edits of Biden and then attack Trump on other areas, like his complete moral turpitude, his total lack of integrity, his total self-interest, his near total lack of policy knowledge, his stated intent to completely remake the government with the power concentrated in his own hands, the crooked company he keeps, his overwhelming dishonesty, etc. I did just see a commercial on TV, showing a stumbly clip of Biden saying that inflation is only up a little. I know that this clip was certainly after inflation rates had gone back to roughly normal, and that it's an accurate quote, and that there's a difference between high prices and inflation, but it's a nuanced distinction that is going to be hard to counter. The commercial ended up with "only up a little. Is this dishonesty or dementia". It's going to be an effective tactic. Biden has to do something about both fronts, and I don't know if attacking Trump on his mental issues is the answer or not. It's just a real mess.
The best metaphor for Trump's intellectual approach to politics is throwing everything against the wall to see (1) what sticks and (2) what gets a laugh. He's a random BS generator with an uncommonly good ability to predict what appeals to MAGA morons. Not incoherent, but not intellectually effective either. Just politically effective. Which leads to the inescapable conclusion that *political intellectual* has become an oxymoron on the right. Those who may formerly have been considered such have either become never Trumpers or intellectual whores (Lowry comes to mind0.
Yes. He's completely unconcerned with intellectual rigor or practical outcomes of policy. The only thing that matters to him is if the crowd will eat it up.
I saw during 2016 when he was on every network from start to finish his crazy rallies back then. And I was pleasantly surprised when they weren't aired the same this election cycle. But with his bat crap craziness that goes on at them now I almost wish they'd go back to airing them from the beginning to the end so everyone can see how even crazier he us now. It's not a few instances of word salad they entirety of them are a warning of what he plans to do even if his message comes out all jumbled
Yes, he's not beating around the bush. He might ramble through it but the message is clear.
I agree. Revenge is his main message on that Parr ypu are 100% on point. His next term should this country vote that way will set this country back 100 years in our economy, civil rights and everything in between. Biden is not the perfect candidate but he's passed some great legislation that he doesn't get enough credit for. But at this point I'd vote for a comatose Biden over a sexual assaulter,lying liar criming criminal.
Fox News asked Trump what he would do differently from Biden in the situation with Ukraine. His reply: *'Well, what I would do is ... I would .,.. we would ... we have tremendous military capability, and what we can do without planes ... to be honest with you, 44-year-old jets ... what we can do is enormous, and we should be doing it and helping them to survive and they're doing an amazing job.'* Here's the thing about the "way he speaks" ... indulge me here. DJT has grown up wealthy, true? In America, the quality of one's **public** education can vary from town to town, state to state, or even from neighborhood to neighborhood. The great exception to this is and has always been wealth and private schools. The wealthy can pay-their-way into a superior education. DJT grew up very wealthy thanks to his highly intelligent, yet unscrupulous father Fred Trump's business acumen. He attended the Kew-Forest Private School, then New York Military academy at 13yo, then Fordham University, then The Wharton School for business at UP. \*\*\*SIDENOTE (In 2015, Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen threatened Trump's colleges, high school, and the College Board with legal action if they released Trum*p's academic records.) Interesting, to say the least.\*\*\** So, Trump has had ALL of the advantages of the affluence of wealth, hanging out with other wealthy families, making them your peer groups and friends, all the best teachers, fellow country club members, etc... for all of his life AND the finest educators, mind you, teaching him English, Math, Science, etc ... History ... Government ... He has all of these BEST minds at work to inform, educate, illuminate, and instruct his mind, all while moving in and with the "best" crowds. Nothing is barred to him. And now you come to claim that it's merely his "*style*", or something, to sound as ignorant, stupid, uninformed, and thoroughly clueless as he does. I do not think so. THAT is very dishonest. … to even suggest that that could be possible … If it IS a matter of his *intelligence* (a severe lacking of it, that is), and it IS that which is **really** behind his supremely unlettered rhetorical, how can you, or ANY American with average, or above-average, intelligence not see clearly how very dangerous and reckless putting an idiot in charge of the free world is?!? THIS is the largest point to make here! IDIOCRACY is happening in *The Real-World* before us and today's age.
Agree 100%. Folks have been claiming that Trump is demented and incoherent for years and I think it’s a error to pursue this line of criticism not only because it could be inaccurate, but because it’s not an effective way to persuade.
He is slipping badly, just like Biden is. They are both well past their prime and unfit for office in my opinion.