(Only?) Demented
The Media Must Not Let "Cognitive Decline" Become the Excuse for Trump's Gaffes
Lately it has become popular to portray Donald Trump as exhibiting signs of dementia - perhaps because it has become a Democratic talking point to counter the Republicans' incessant depiction of President Biden's so-called "senility."
Two assertions need to be made about this regarding Trump: the first involves the difficulty of defining and identifying dementia, but the other is far more serious.
Trump's conduct since 2015 has become so increasingly outlandish that it is hard to fully determine how much his mental and emotional faculties have deteriorated versus how much what he is doing is something far worse and vile: contrived theater.
I say "contrived and vile" because Trump has recently been ridiculed for repeatedly referring to Biden as "Obama." Too many have hopped on the bandwagon of calling this "proof" of Trump's mental decline. However, it is proof of something else: Trump's exploitation of racism and xenophobia – and then of something more ominous.
When interviewer Brian Kilmeade corrected Trump with "You mean President Biden," Trump - the man who initially rose to national political fame and created the "birther" movement by challenging President Obama's citizenship - responded "No, I mean Obama - Obama is Biden's boss."
Since the 2020 election there has been a Republican attempt to portray Biden as "out of touch and controlled by his (supposed) handlers" - so now Trump uses the phrase "President Obama" much as there was "Crooked Hillary," "Low Energy Jeb" and "Sleepy Joe" - because "Sleepy Joe" doesn't stir up the racist fear that referring to Biden as "President Obama" does. And Islamophobia gets added to the mix when Trump refers to the former President by his full name: Barack Hussein Obama.
It is important that we don't confuse all of Trump's gaffes with the deterioration of his personality - that we take him at his word when he says some of them are intentional - because if they are, they are far more dangerous to the nation than the possibility that only his mental and emotional faculties are deteriorating.
Kilmeade's attempt to help Trump by gently correcting him might actually have given us a roadmap regarding how to not so gently approach covering Trump in the future.
Serious journalists and commentators must figure out a way to probe and analyze Trump's words so that independent voters and his more open-minded, moderate supporters can see through the double talk and understand that Trump is not who they are and what they stand for.
SERIOUS journalists should ask Trump AND HIS SPOKESPERSONS questions such as "Is this a statement we should reflect on and seriously analyze, or does Trump not really mean what he is saying? ..." and then ask them to go into more detail to flush out what Trump's own words are really intended to convey.
Since 2015 the guise of "contrived theater" has given Trump a free rein to say whatever he has wanted and not be held accountable. Instead of calling Trump "demented" like lemmings parroting the accusation while walking off the cliff into the abyss of authoritarianism, we must start to QUESTION whether Trump is "demented", whether what he is saying is "CONTRIVED nonsense" - or whether we should take SERIOUSLY and and ANALYZE (and make Trump and his spokespersons AND APOLOGISTS IN THE POLITICAL ARENA explain and analyze with us) such statements as: that he would shut down media outlets like Comcast NBC or social media companies he has threatened in the past … and by extension MSNBC … CNN … or Facebook ... or Twitter/X … - and "What do you actually and fully mean when you say you would suspend parts of the Constitution ("which parts?" - "when, under what circumstances?" - "for how long?" - “for what ultimate purpose?")
And perhaps most importantly: "HOW would you accomplish this LEGALLY from within our system of government?" … and … “What exactly would you replace all of it with?"