Avoiding the d-word

In The New Yorker, Susan Glasser writes about Donald Trump, who turns seventy-eight today: “If ever there were a case for age-related diminishment of a candidate, Donald Trump is it.”

Glasser politely avoids the d-word. But it must be said, as Drs. John Gartner and Harry Segal say, again and again, on their podcast Shrinking Trump, that there is a difference between aging and dementing: one major-party candidate for president has a brain that’s aging; the other, a brain that’s dementing. As Gartner and Segal also point out, psychopathy gives dementia cover: the former guy always says crazy things, right?

You may have seen Tamara Keith veer away from any consideration of the d-word on the PBS NewsHour this past Monday. After a brief compilation of odd remarks from Trump’s June 9 Las Vegas rally (excluding the death by shark/death by electrocution bit), Amna Nawaz asked for comment:

I just want to point out all of those remarks were within one 10-minute window.

Tam, for all his calls for President Biden to undergo some kind of cognitive test, it’s clear to say Mr. Trump’s remarks are not at all coherent in these rallies.

And Keith:

Mr. Trump’s remarks have never been super coherent in his rallies. I’m not sure that I can weigh in on how much they have veered in the last couple of months, but this split screen [Trump/Biden] has always been there, will always be there.

They are different people. And the people who stood in 110-degree weather to see that speech got what they came for. They got the greatest hits. They got some surprising things that they weren’t expecting, because the teleprompter went out, which just made it a little bit more fun.

Yeah, fun.