Trump’s Cognitive Decline Needs to Be Front Page News Everywhere

‘America Rises’ Post #23: Tuesday, November 14th, 2023

Donald Trump has been a malignant narcissist with anti-social personality disorder for most of his life. However, he has only recently begun to exhibit serious and undeniable signs of cognitive deterioration that are consistent with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. Because Trump is such a walking smorgasbord of mental illness and we have become so inured to his insanity, it has been more difficult for the mainstream media to extricate his cognitive deficits from his broader amalgam of psychological instability. However, his slip-ups are becoming so pervasive and constant that even they are beginning to catch on.

Let’s look at some examples from Trump’s speeches/rallies just over the past few months:

• September 16^th, 2023: Said you need a photo ID to buy a loaf of bread (No you don't)

• September 18^th, 2023: Claimed that under Biden, we would be in World War II (World War II already happened)

• September 18^th, 2023: Said he beat Obama in 2016 (He “beat” Hillary Clinton in 2016)

• September 26^th, 2023: Told a rally audience that Jeb Bush invaded Iraq (George W. Bush led us into Iraq)

• October 8^th, 2023: Said Hannibal Lecter was a great actor (Lecter was a fictional character played by the great actor Anthony Hopkins)

• October 13^th, 2023: Thought Barack Obama was the current president (Joe Biden is the current president)

• October 14^th, 2023: Said Republicans “eat their young” when they attack him (The teleprompter most likely said “eat their own”)

• October 23^rd, 2023: Said that Viktor Orban was the leader of Turkey (Orban is the leader of Hungary. Tayyip Erdogan is the leader of Turkey)

• October 29^th, 2023: Greeted the crowd in Sioux City, Iowa by saying “Hello to a place where we’ve done very well, Sioux Falls! Thank you very much, Sioux Falls!” (Sioux Falls is a city in South Dakota)

• November 11^th, 2023: Said that Viktor Orban, the leader of Hungary, had been asked what advice he would give to “President Obama” about how to proceed in a world that “seems to be exploding and imploding.” According to Trump, Orban replied that Obama “should immediately resign and they should replace him with President Trump, who kept the world safe.” (Again, Barack Obama is not the current President. Joe Biden is)

To be clear, Donald Trump was mentally unfit for office even when he was at the height of his cognitive abilities. His psychopathology renders him incapable of fundamental aptitudes that a President must be able to do; such as navigating reality, properly assessing risk, telling the truth, taking responsibility, considering the viewpoints, needs, and concerns of others, and viewing the world and its complex and interweaving problems through a lens that isn’t indisputably warped by his own cosmic delusions of grandeur and self-importance.

The fact that he is now demonstrating clear signs of cognitive attenuation ON TOP OF his preexisting pathological deficits serves only to drive the point home even further that this man cannot be allowed to come anywhere near the White House ever again. For as dangerous as it is to have a malignant narcissist with no capacity to regard anyone or anything but himself in possession of the nuclear codes, that danger is exponentially compounded if that same malignant narcissist has no idea what city he is in, what day or year it currently is, or who is currently leading other countries.

Back in September, Trump took to his failing social media platform ‘Truth Social’ to rail against the Wall Street Journal for a piece they published that questioned his cognitive fitness for office. In this post, which itself serves as yet another illustration of his cognitive decline, he once again brags about “acing the cognitive test” he took 5 years ago. Except, as everyone (but him, evidently) remembers, it wasn’t a cognitive fitness test. It was the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) used for assessing cognitive decline and early stages of dementia (see image below).

This is the test that Trump notoriously patted himself on the back for his ability to remember the words “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.” There is no score on this test that is indicative of strong cognitive ability whatsoever. And a good score on it does not rule out that an individual is experiencing early signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, I would argue that continually citing your “performance” on this test as “proof” of your “cognitive superiority” is actually extremely indicative that you are at the very least in the early stages of dementia or Alzheimer’s. And Trump has done this repeatedly. Also worth noting that when Trump first took this test, he stated that “Some of the questions were easy, but some were very difficult. I don’t think you’d be able to answer the last five questions. But I did.” If you look at the exam, you can see that the last five questions literally just ask you what today’s date is (including the month, year, and day) as well as where you are (city and state). He thought these were “extremely difficult.” And this was five years ago.

Donald also has a family history of Alzheimer’s disease, which makes him at substantially increased likelihood of developing it. His niece, Mary, revealed that not only was Donald terrified of developing it himself—as a narcissist who has conned millions into thinking he’s among the world’s most “stable geniuses” could never handle being exposed as a cognitively impaired simpleton—but that he actually used his own father’s dementia to convince him to leave him nearly his entire estate.

In “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man,” Mary recalled how Trump derided his father when he was ill with Alzheimer's and took full advantage of it by coercing him into changing the will in Donald's favor. Mary Trump has taped interviews with Trump's sister who said, “Dad was in dementia...I show it to [husband] John, and he says, ‘Holy s—t.’ It was basically taking the whole estate and giving it to Donald.”

Other people close to him have disclosed anecdotes that paint the exact same picture. They claim he is a mediocre man who knows he isn’t all that bright and it drives him nuts. This is what compelled him to take the MoCA in the first place, as a way to “prove the naysayers wrong about his cognitive aptitude.” Shortly before taking it, he said this at a rally:

I said 'Ronnie, I don't like when people call me stupid. I have great heritage, an uncle who was a great, great genius, a father who was a genius, they're all geniuses, we had a lot of geniuses. I don't like being called stupid. Is there a test I can take to prove to these radical left maniacs that I'm much smarter than them?

While intelligence cannot be quantified by a single test, there are countless examinations Donald could have been administered to demonstrate intellect. The fact that his personal physician (Ronald Jackson) chose to give him a test designed to detect dementia and early-onset Alzheimer’s rather than an IQ test tells you that even those closest to him who defend his mental and physical health the most fervently know that he is severely cognitively debilitated.

As I’ve said, Trump was mentally unfit in 2016 and in 2020. But what we are seeing now, in 2023, is different, and must be called out for the additional danger that it poses. Trump has always been insane, but only recently have we begun to see that he is also exhibiting repeated and severe signs of cognitive attenuation that indicate either the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. Just over the past few months, he has confused world leaders, what state/city he was in, who he faced in the 2016 election, mixed up the population of North Korea and China, and stated that Barack Obama was the current President of the United States. His supporters may not care if his cognition disappears altogether, but we must not only care but continue to draw attention to it and the compounded danger it represents in a candidate who is basically a coin flip away from retaining the Presidency in 2025.

His terrifying cognitive stumbles will likely only continue to get worse as his “campaign” trudges on, his legal woes intensify, and it becomes increasingly clear that he has no way out of spending the rest of his life in prison (even if he wins the election in 2024, which he won’t). As someone who studies psychology, I can tell the difference between an individual who is cognitively deteriorating and one who is not. And Joe Biden is not exhibiting any signs of cognitive decline. Donald Trump is exhibiting nothing BUT signs of cognitive decline. The media needs to do a complete 180 with which candidate is mentally unfit to serve another term in the White House. Because, as I wrote about back in September, it is not Joe Biden.

We will continue to call out evidence of Trump’s cognitive diminution and make sure it gets the attention it deserves as we get closer to election day. And if the Republican Party is dumb enough to make Trump their nominee, which they are, we will ensure that Joe Biden defeats him once again.

Thanks for reading and have a great week!

Best,

Andrew