Trump Dementia Alerts

[Kishkumen]

I absolutely love when I find common ground with you, Kish.

Since you were willing to post what you did, I want to offer you something in return: I think Trump says many things that are very divisive and mean - One example (I could give you many) is when he recently tweeted that he "hated" Oprah. Now, as someone who isn't a huge Oprah fan, I thought that was really uncalled for and mean. In addition, to have such a thing come from the President (past, current of running) makes it far worse in my opinion.

There.

Not challenging you - just asking: Does age matter or is this your position period?

I believe that the age of majority vs. age of minority makes a big difference. In other words, parental consent for a minor to go through any such treatment must be a requirement, in my view. I am struck by the problematic nature of the reasoning that allows the young person who cannot vote, fight in the military, drink alcohol, or even drive to get such treatment without parental consent. Now, I would hope, speaking for myself, that most people would agree, but I am worried that some do not. I am concerned that the parent who would not allow a child to go through such treatment would be assumed to be abusive or might even pursued legally or otherwise by the state on the grounds that they are being abusive to the child by not consenting.

This is one of those tricky issues that has no easy solution. There are people who have an absolute conviction that their body does not match their sense of who they are. There are young people who have such a conviction. To forbid treatment would not be right. To throw out parental rights would be dangerous (because where else might they be chucked out?). I am all for choice here, and I am all for parental consent. Children cannot be treated as adults. It is unfortunate that these clumsy rules will result in suffering, and I have no doubt they will. The alternatives, however, are conceivably much worse.

[Kishkumen]

Absolutely. No question there at all.

He could have dementia, I'm not saying he doesn't, I'm just taking the Bayesian approach where you have to consider alt hypothesis and in a party where incoherent extremist speech scores points, it's hard for me to say.

The better evidence as you say may be in the details, screwing up words etc. Get past the messaging and look at the mechanics.

Yeah, could be a combination of factors. One thing that I think is true: a large number of elderly people suffer from some decline in their verbal facility. This starts in middle age and I already suffer from not being able to conjure a word here or there when I need it. Evidently, that is perfectly natural. Now move forward a few decades in the aging process of the brain. It does not get better. There are those outliers who are as verbally sharp at 90 as they were at 55, but there aren't that many of them.

Trump is a talker of a certain kind. He is the salesman or confidence artist. He never cared whether what he was saying was true. He only hoped to say it in such a way that it would get him what he wanted. He always put his confidence, drama, and humor before other messaging considerations. He does not go back to correct himself partly because of his habits of mind and partly because of his beliefs. He will just push through things that other people would get concerned about seeing in themselves.

Maybe some dementia. Definitely cognitive decline. Absolutely a person who never had normal discipline in speaking accurately.

[Marcus]

Well, he’s definitely a sociopath.

Absolutely. No question there at all.

He could have dementia, I'm not saying he doesn't, I'm just taking the Bayesian approach where you have to consider alt hypothesis and in a party where incoherent extremist speech scores points, it's hard for me to say.

The better evidence as you say may be in the details, screwing up words etc. Get past the messaging and look at the mechanics.

The most recent one I saw was when he couldn't remember "adulthood" for when children grow up into adults, and his plural for child was "childs" not children.

[ceeboo]

I believe that the age of majority vs. age of minority makes a big difference. In other words, parental consent for a minor to go through any such treatment must be a requirement, in my view. I am struck by the problematic nature of the reasoning that allows the young person who cannot vote, fight in the military, drink alcohol, or even drive to get such treatment without parental consent. Now, I would hope, speaking for myself, that most people would agree, but I am worried that some do not. I am concerned that the parent who would not allow a child to go through such treatment would be assumed to be abusive or might even pursued legally or otherwise by the state on the grounds that they are being abusive to the child by not consenting.

This is one of those tricky issues that has no easy solution. There are people who have an absolute conviction that their body does not match their sense of who they are. There are young people who have such a conviction. To forbid treatment would not be right. To throw out parental rights would be dangerous (because where else might they be chucked out?). I am all for choice here, and I am all for parental consent. Children cannot be treated as adults. It is unfortunate that these clumsy rules will result in suffering, and I have no doubt they will. The alternatives, however, are conceivably much worse.

Thanks for answering and having the courage to put your views out there - especially considering what a deeply sensitive topic this is.

(My apologies to the thread's author for taking his thread off course)

[Marcus]

I have a neighbor who has been formally diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, which is a form of dementia. A symptom that comes and goes for her is an extreme inability to come up with a particular word or description, and she would pause and search, sometimes for an unbearably long time, and she would get frustrated if people suggested the wrong word, or made multiple suggestions, or she couldn't come up with it. She couldn't stop herself from cycling like this, and she was very embarrassed by it. One day she just broke down with me at how badly this makes her feel.

I told her my teaching trick (which I developed because over the years I realized that no matter how confident one is and how well prepared one's lecture notes are, sometimes the anxiety or stage fright or distraction or whatever just gets to you!!!).

The trick is that when I am up in front of a full classroom and a word just won't come, I literally force myself to just skip over it and confidently find a synonym, even if it's not a very good one--or even if it's a very very bad one(!!), just so that I can break that pause cycle and keep going, and just trust I will circle back in a couple of sentences and update or correct. She says this suggestion is very helpful!! If nothing else, it promotes some dignity instead of unrelenting despair.

I think Trump does a version of that, but, he has absolutely no integrity or discernment that allows him to learn from the situation, nor is he willing to openly apologize and/or correct his own errors when this happens. Coupled with the fact that he literally has no adult vocabulary or the ability to express a cogent, multiple-sentence thought, in my opinion, he already has issues that dementia will only exacerbate.

[Res Ipsa]

Actually, I think this sane-washing ought to be stopped on both sides - Like the utter absurdity of Harris supporting illegal immigrants having their transition surgeries funded by the US taxpayers.

Yeah, that is pretty out there, and it is absolutely true that she held such a position. The extremes of gender politics are something the Left remains blind to, and I think that people on the Right are absolutely justified in seeing this as kinda kooky.

To be clear, if a person believes they are another gender, and they want to get operations to live out that identity more fully, I support their right to do so 100%, and I will gladly treat them as they want to be treated, but public funding of the transition surgeries of non-citizens who come to this country should be a very low priority, if it even qualifies as one.

Constitutionally, it isn't out there at all. When the state incarcerates someone, the eighth amendment requires it to provide a standard of medical treatment. The last time I looked, courts were trying to figure out the circumstances under which the government was required to provide incarcerated persons with medical/surgical treatment for gender dysphoria. The answer, not surprisingly, was "sometimes."

[Jersey Girl]

Well, he’s definitely a sociopath. The regular slurring of words coupled with something called phonemic paraphasia, where he swaps out words or syllables when attempting to say a particular thing, is for me the biggest tell. In fact, he probably has aphasia, since he can’t read for crap, hence he has to riff all the time. The other thing that stands out foe me is how he regularly loses touch with reality. Whether or not that’s a result of lying so much or mental decline is essentially one and the same for me.

- Doc

He has NPD. I'm not entirely sure I'd go with sociopathy or psychopathy because people with NPD (he's off the charts) can appear indifferent and unconcerned with the needs of others. They're interest in others is limited to how others can be used to "feed" them, In other words provide supply.

About the reading. I do agree with the Shrinking Trump doctors with regard to to his phonemic paraphasia and how he fizzles out and slurs while speaking but...one thing I've never heard them cover and this fits with what you said about his not being able to read for crap (true) is that he might be dyslexic. It could be aphasia but I haven't heard one commentor consider that he's dyslexic and I think that's absolutely on the table. I say subjectively based on the fact that I see in him traits of folks I know and have worked with who have dyslexia so take it for what it's worth.

One thing that's become clear to me is how commentors jump right to the "big" diagnoses that set off alarms or a sense of satisfaction in those who oppose a candidate and overlook a simpler and more relatable explanation such as dyslexia, thus magnifying that sense of "the other".

[Physics Guy]

I spend a lot of time speaking in a language I only started learning twenty years ago, and in which I have never done much reading. My vocabulary in German is awfully narrow for an educated adult.

I think this must shield me from the common middle-aged embarrassment of not finding a word that one knows that one knows. I know that I don't know most words. So I feel okay about word-finding difficulties in German because I have low expectations of my German vocabulary.

And on the other hand, if I'm speaking English then much of the time it's with non-native speakers of English, so I've developed a sort of voluntarily reduced vocabulary in English as well. It's probably easier to search.

And I guess that I'm rarely under much pressure to speak well in either English or German. In German everyone cuts me a lot of slack, and nobody notices little flaws in my English.

This is nice for me, I guess, but I think it might have a useful message for other people as well. I find that relaxing about how well I'm communicating doesn't seem to prevent me from communicating just fine. So maybe not finding quite the right word really just doesn't matter that much. Maybe you can just go on, and people will get what you mean, and that's okay.

[Marcus]

Lol, that was kinda the point of my trick that I shared with my friend who is legitimately stressing over her Alzheimer's, but thank you for restating it so casually.

On the other hand, I try not to assume my students will just get what I mean if I don't say what I mean as that seems to add unnecessarily to their stress, but YMMV.

[Kishkumen]

Constitutionally, it isn't out there at all. When the state incarcerates someone, the eighth amendment requires it to provide a standard of medical treatment. The last time I looked, courts were trying to figure out the circumstances under which the government was required to provide incarcerated persons with medical/surgical treatment for gender dysphoria. The answer, not surprisingly, was "sometimes."

Thanks, Res Ipsa. Obviously I do not know the law and constitution as you do. I can understand why under some circumstances such care would be the humane way to help a migrant. That said, I don’t see that being a general election policy position that helps win Independents and centrists. I am not claiming that this represents Harris’ GE posture. I am only weighing in on its value as a GE position.