Placing a bet

[Physics Guy]

I have a theory about Donald Trump that I want to go on record as advancing. I'm not sure it's true; it's just a strong suspicion. I figure it may take as long as a couple of years before it can be confirmed, and if it's not confirmed by then, that will probably count as disproof.

The theory is that Trump isn't actually evil or even authoritarian, just cognitively impaired to a more severe degree than most people seem to suspect. He can still talk, but his speech is just reflexive patter by a life-long BS artist. It's automatic babble—and I mean this literally, not as a figure of speech.

People who start losing their hearing sometimes become garrulous. The more they are the ones talking, the less they have to suffer the unpleasant experience of not knowing what the conversation is about. In the same way, my theory goes, a man who felt his ability to comprehend anything slipping away, years ago, started hogging attention, and craving authority, to avoid the unpleasant experience of having to understand anyone else, or convince anyone else. By now, I guess, the habits are firmly ingrained.

The biggest problem I see with this theory is that you would think that Trump's political opponents could have punctured him easily, if he is a mental small child with adult mannerisms. Trump himself being nearly mindless can account for his own acts and statements, but it seems as though his opponents all have to be dim as well, and it becomes harder to believe that that many people are all so impaired. So maybe my theory is wrong, and Trump is shrewd after all, at least in some things.

But it's still weird how stupid Trump's opponents all seem to have been, even if he's not so stupid. The ineptness of everyone else on the American political scene is a problem for any theory. They have to be incompetent enough, no matter what, that it's not such a stretch to imagine them being incompetent enough to let a virtually mindless person beat them. So I feel that my theory's worth stating, in spite of this problem.

I also do have one hypothesis to explain why everyone else seems to have been paralysed by Trump: Dunning-Kruger. It has become so hard to understand what a modern government should do that only a very incompetent person can project confidence.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

[Kishkumen]

Interesting theory. I do think Trump is cognitively impaired and that he relies heavily on the habits of a lifetime. That said, those habits he picked up from his dad (a slum lord), Roy Cohn (a ruthless and predatory lawyer and one of the most despicable men who ever lived), Norman Vincent Peale (New Thought Movement), and pro wrestling. Trump’s tactics and attitudes are pretty well explained by a combination of these influences. He was a fairly good student of the things he cared about, but he has no interest in adding substantive value to the world. His world is the world of the crooked, self-promoting narcissist.

[Hound of Heaven]

I can't quite recall if it was last week or earlier this week, but I mentioned to Kishkumen that he had posted one of the dumbest threads I'd ever seen on the board. However, you've truly outdone him with this one! It's officially the most clueless and ridiculous thread I've encountered on any board throughout my entire existence.

From 2020 to 2024, we had a president who seemed to have a special talent for tripping over his own feet, rarely graced us with a press conference, and participated in a single debate that left us all wondering if he was playing a game of charades. Then, poof! Kamala Harris stepped in, and you stayed quiet.

But now, you’re convinced that Donald Trump, who holds press conferences like they’re going out of style, is the one with the cognitive hiccups? Congratulations! By sharing your theory here, you've officially lowered the IQ of everyone reading this thread.

Here are the facts! You, much like Kishkumen and Schmo, seem to be experiencing a case of Trump derangement Syndrome, leading you to think so irrationally that you now believe anyone who disagrees with you must be completely clueless. You're so bummed that progressives took a hit from Trump in 2024, it's like you can't even remember how to function without making Trump the star of your daily drama! Honestly, I can't help but feel a bit of sympathy for you, Kishkumen and Schmo.

After I hit send on this, I'm diving deep into the internet rabbit hole, hunting for a remedy for TDS. My goal? To come back and share the good news, so I can help lighten the load of the self-inflicted drama you're carrying around for no good reason! I'll swing by with an update, maybe later today or tomorrow, if the stars align! In the meantime, take a breather, and for the love of all things funny, stop blaming Trump for your inner turmoil! It makes you look foolish!

[huckelberry]

Hound, you think you can find a cure for Trump derangement syndrome? I am waiting because I'm one of those poor people who find Trump absolutely disgusting and repulsive. Maybe you can find a cure. Maybe that cure would make some of your outlandish comments sound reasonable.

Maybe that cure would replace the meaning of racism with your bastardized version.

[Doctor Steuss]

Hound, you think you can find a cure for Trump derangement syndrome? [...]

Perhaps the Trump administration can initiate a study on it. They could just give it to the guy who was convicted of practicing medicine without a license, chemically castrating children to "treat" their autism, that they just put in charge of another major study. Y'know, the best and brightest, like all things MAGA. Merit-based stable geniuses all the way down and up.

[Gadianton]

Is it falsified if he's still continuing on by end of term?

I think he's savvy, but no more brilliant than the yard boss at any given county jail. No guess if he's in decline for his age. The problem I have with the decline theories, is that it there is also the feedback loop his brand reinforces. In order to stay relevant, he needs to be more outrageous the next day than he was the day before. It would have the same effect of isolation, not just increasingly bad decisions, but increasingly lack of awareness about just how bad the decisions actually are; not just intentionally making bad decisions for the Lols.

Anti-intellectualism and disrespecting authority, and turning the tables on authority is the brand. The more bombastically dumb the better the spectacle. There could still be savvy scheming behind it all. The fact it seems to be working in terms of taking power suggests that there is.

As a glimpse into the kind of behavior I see reinforced in a feedback loop: Years and years ago, there was a network special on the Ku Klux Klan. The guy who was the grand wizard was young, maybe early thirties. He gets up before his crowd at the pulpit and starts by reading a racist poem that he had composed himself. I won't repeat the parts I remember, but it was dumb by any standards. He wasn't sure what the meter was so he'd speed up and slow down and over-emphasize the words that rhymed, get stuck on words more than two syllables, and basically made a fool of himself. And it was all in total earnestness, no hint he wasn't trying his best. The more uninformed and dumb the rant, the more street cred it has.

[Kishkumen]

Hound, you think you can find a cure for Trump derangement syndrome? I am waiting because I'm one of those poor people who find Trump absolutely disgusting and repulsive. Maybe you can find a cure. Maybe that cure would make some of your outlandish comments sound reasonable.

Maybe that cure would replace the meaning of racism with your bastardized version.

There are only three cures for Hound's so-called "Trump Derangement Syndrome":

• Abandon your humanity.
• Get a lobotomy.
• Pretend you go along with MAGA because you are a coward.

In point of fact the only "Trump Derangement Syndrome" is the one that allows people to think that Trump is smart, competent, and worthy of his position.

Perhaps the Trump administration can initiate a study on it.

Yeah, that's a non-starter. Trump isn't about studying anything. He may be an object of study for future generations who wonder what the hell happened to the US in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, but he and his regime only use the word "study" as a rhetorical dodge or in the course of their theater of government by pretense.

By sharing your theory here, you've officially lowered the IQ of everyone reading this thread.

Obviously did a real number on you.