Chris please tell the MAGA crowd Trump's cult members to STOP saying that Biden has Dementia with the same vigor you are using to ask people to stop saying that Trump has Dementia
If anyone has dementia it is djt. I read a book including opinions of 37 psych doctors and they concluded that his behavior, speech, how he goes on tangents, demonstrates he is further along than what many have thought. They even signed a petition for him not to run but apparently that went no where. Usually it’s family who gets involved with treatment. But then it is “Trump”. Anyway mine did.
President Joe Biden does not have dementia. He has normal aging. I read that! The stamina that he has is absolutely stunning!😍
There are over 100,000 licensed psychologists in the United States. Thirty-seven hardly sounds like a number I would call convincing. That‘s less than .04 percent of all psychologists.
This is exactly what I was thinking … the comparison with Regan. By the last year or so of Regan’s 2nd term, who was actually running the country?
If Trump is elected, I give it 6 months before he is “clinically diagnosed” and we have ultra conservatives like the Heritage Foundation running the country.
No thanks… I say call him like you see him before he gets even closer to Election Day.
I’m no psychologist but I was the daughter of a father with dementia ( and he wasn’t a megalomaniacal narcissist). And, no, my father could not be an “active member” of his community, much less the leader of the United States. But he was still valued by his family.
That he consistently refers to Biden as having dementia means he can make ridiculous statements but others can't about him. It fits a behavior pattern that demeans anyone in Trump's way. Trump calls Biden a crook because Trump is a crook - part of his effort to make everyone as low as he is. Trump slurs words and lines in speeches , gets names wrong, froze for 30 seconds, all things that he'd use daily against Biden. While I agree that making a diagnosis on TV is at best unusual, it is time to treat Trump as he treats his competitors. If he can lie hourly but we have to play by Robert's Rule of Order then we'll have 4 more years at least of Trump.
Chris, with all due respect, you have followed politics for a long time. I am not even a medical professional, but common sense tells you that you actually can diagnose someone in mental decline from afar, simply by longevity of observation. You can’t tell me with a straight face that you — and everyone who follows politics closely, and particularly in person — did not know that Strom Thurmond, Dianne Feinstein, Thad Cochran, and John Conyers were in late stages of dementia. Of course you did. So did everyone else. I had observed them for years, and the decline was obvious and very real. So yeah — it absolutely can be done. I agree that it shouldn’t be done to score political points.
However, the caveat to that is if the other side is going to point out every time Biden takes a faltering step, or that he wears more comfortable shoes now, or takes the shorter flight of stairs, or they claim he is on cocaine when he gives a national speech that wildly exceeded expectations, etc., you are allowed to point out every time your opponent forgets who he is running against, confuses a former rival with the former Speaker of the House, falls asleep at his trial, slurs his words, makes rambling word salad statements, and claims his clearly obese body is the picture of health.
I wish politics was high-minded debate, but that isn’t where we are at now, and you can’t fight a campaign with one hand tied behind your back while the other guy does whatever he wants with impunity. The very fact that you are hand-wringing over accusations of Trump being mentally ill, but just take for granted that Trump will accuse Biden of everything under the sun, is a perfect illustration of why it is needed. You take Trump’s actions as inevitable, including when he has elected and media surrogates spreading the same messages, but leap to opine on Biden supporters engaging in online diagnoses with more restraint and equal evidence. This isn’t bothsideserism, it is an ethical bias. You expect Biden and his supporters to be better — and they are. But you expect an aspiration to perfection, so you have thoughts when he falls short of the ideal. I’m sure he’d rather not do it either, but I’d also rather that he win and feel bad about it, and apologize later. This fever needs to break, and we need a reset.
Okay, you have a valid point. I am familiar with the Goldwater case (it's a fairly famous one in libel law) and get that people should not be diagnosed from a distance.
On the other hand, you of all people know just how incoherent and bizarre Trump's pronouncements have become, even more so than years ago, as you demonstrate every time you pull the "nuttiest" things he said in his most recent speech. His words salads, his contradictions, his projecting his flaws onto others, his bizarre flights of fancy ("the late, great Hannibal Lecter"), are all signs of someone who is seriously unstable, whatever a professional medical diagosis would find. We all have lapses of memories or misspeak, but those calling out Trump recognize that what he is exhibiting -- however you want to define it -- goes far beyond that.
"Tilt" us into authoritarianism? Are you kidding? There is a real possibility that the rethugs in Ohio will not put Biden on the ballot. There is no tilt. We are in a nosedive. Trump will never agree to the appropriate tests for diagnosis. Anyone who cannot see his decline from even 5 years ago is blind or a sycophant.
He may or may not have dementia. But he has always had narcissistic personality disorder, which has CLEARLY worsened over the last 10 years. It was bad enough before...
Ok, I’ll say that Donald J Trump is “exhibiting signs of cognitive decline, and his body habitus suggests physical decline as well.”.Trump is an old man who has not taken good care of himself, eats poorly, exercises little, and the chickens are coming home to roost. On his head. In that nest of “hair”.
Maybe you can't diagnose dementia from watching someone on TV, but if you have watched El Jefe del Mar A Lardo on the TV since he rode the escalator from hell in 2015, you can definitely see that he doesn't communicate now in 2024 as clearly as he did in 2015 (which wasn't a paradigm in clarity) and if you look at him on The Apprentice and earlier, he communicates much clearer then than today. The way he speaks now - misusing words, making up nonsense words, forgetting words, losing his train of thought - there is certainly something going on. Plus back in 1966, when he was allowed to AUDIT classes at Wharton - not having the grades to qualify for admittance as a regular student - one of his professors from back then recalled him in 2016 as "the dumbest fucking student who ever walked into my classroom." His willful ignorance and public displays of stupidity and lack of understanding of what he's talking about (shine a light inside the human body to fight COVID? Drink bleach? Take a horse medicine for COVID?) show him to certainly be the least mentally-qualified person to be president.
For the 100th time, NOBODY, including the esteemed Dr. Ibrahim, knows whether or not he will be re-elected. We do not know anything until the votes are cast and counted. As much as any of us want it to be so, that doesn't change the electorate. Until Comey's October 2016 surprise, Hillary was going to win. We all know how well that went.
Trump is just evil! He will step on or over anyone he can to get his way. He uses others for the hands-on dirty work.
I still think he is unfit to be President because of the actions he took while in office and after. He has tried to overthrow our government, that is Treason! And there is not enough space on the web to list his lies which keep rolling off his lips. Up front is the vicious lie the election was stolen.
He just can’t admit to or face the fact that he is a loser!
My dad has parkinsons dementia and its hard when I see people attacking Trump for that.
I hate Trump and I think something is wrong with him. I did see your tweet this week. And to be honest, I was more on the other side before reading this article. But after reading it I will have to agree with you.
So many people say and believe things only because it fits their narrative "I hate Trump therefore it must be true that he has dementia". Few people do the research you just did and I really appreciate you and your work. We need more.
Jen Rubin had Alan Gartner on her podcast. His position was that the Goldwater Rule wasn't applicable anymore because we now have the DSM, which has very specific criteria for diagnosing mental illness. I'm with Gartner and Jen on this. Pres Biden has mental lapses that are consistent with normal aging. Dumpy's physical and spoken symptoms are signs of dementia.
Actually, the DSM does not address dementia. Dementia is not a mental health issue it’s a neurological processing disorder that is not something the DSM-5 addresses..
I always find your columns to be soooo informative, humorous , and on point . This one, however, rises above even that plateau of excellent journalism . One of the best you’ve done, my man!
Two people very close to me (my mother and my late wife) died of dementia. I do know something about this and strongly believe that Trump has dementia, as well as other psychological and mental disorders.
First off, his name is DOCTOR John Gartner and *anyone* who’s been a Professor at Johns Hopkins, one of the finest medical schools and teaching hospitals in the world, certainly needs to be taken seriously.
Secondly, as I’ve pointed out in Comments to your posts RE dementia, let’s be clear that diagnosing narcissistic personality disorder from afar would be unethical, but dementia is not. Gartner, and the 500 mental health professionals that have signed Duty To Warn’s open letter, do the day to day work of diagnosis of dementia. Whether your quick “research” into 2 medical groups and their comments has much bearing, could you allow the likely fact that *some* of what they publish is to hold themselves harmless from legal liability, not unlike putting “CAUTION:HOT LIQUID” on a McDonalds cup of coffee?
Thirdly, the comments and observations of Allen Frances, back in 2017, ie 7 years ago! have virtually NO bearing on a diagnosis of Trump in 2024! If you, like Dr. Gartner and the 500 mental health professionals that are part of Duty To Warn, had actually WATCHED Trump and the change in his mannerisms, speech style, and gaffes, instead of just reading transcripts, you might have more credibility on this one. Sure, they’re observing him “on TV”, but you’re not even doing that!
Sorry, but you’re out of your league here, Chris. I’m finding that more and more, you’re writing to justify your opinions and writing less cogent and detailed analysis of politics (like taking polls at face value without digging in to the crosstabs and just using common sense). I’m disappointed.
I am a psychiatrist. Chris, I agree it is not responsible to diagnose anyone with dementia without a thorough diagnostic evaluation and is certainly not responsible from t v appearances. As you said, there are significant reasons to not trust or vote for Trump, as well as reasons not to vote for or totally trust Biden or many politicians. I also believe it is fair to question the vigor of Biden with his age, but I hope people listen to your plea and stop diagnosing either candidate with dementia
Chris please tell the MAGA crowd Trump's cult members to STOP saying that Biden has Dementia with the same vigor you are using to ask people to stop saying that Trump has Dementia
If anyone has dementia it is djt. I read a book including opinions of 37 psych doctors and they concluded that his behavior, speech, how he goes on tangents, demonstrates he is further along than what many have thought. They even signed a petition for him not to run but apparently that went no where. Usually it’s family who gets involved with treatment. But then it is “Trump”. Anyway mine did.
President Joe Biden does not have dementia. He has normal aging. I read that! The stamina that he has is absolutely stunning!😍
There are over 100,000 licensed psychologists in the United States. Thirty-seven hardly sounds like a number I would call convincing. That‘s less than .04 percent of all psychologists.
He did
I literally did.
Agreed. 💯.
Chris fact check / correction The Goldwater rule was promulgated by the American Psychiatric Association not the American Psychological Association. See the link for one of several official statements https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/apa-blog/2017/03/apa-remains-committed-to-supporting-goldwater-rule
I get your analysis, which is only a doctor trained to diagnose dementia can “technically” make the call on a patient’s cognitive state.
Stipulated.
I will only add one example, where the press and electorate-at-large, all concluded that by 1985-6, something was going on with Ronald Reagan.
Yes, he had survived a shooting.
Yes he was in his seventies.
Yes he had survived a skin and colon cancer scare. Yes he was hard of hearing.
Yes, Nancy would answer for him sometimes even though he was standing right there, because he was awkwardly slow to utter even one cogent word.
Again, stipulated.
Turns out, we, the great uncertified unwashed were right: he had early onset Alzheimer’s.
Let’s meet in the middle here, okay?
Trump is different. Maybe he’s angry different, maybe he’s anxiety different, maybe he’s frustrated different, maybe he’s under-over medicated different.
Who knows?
But our eyes and ears aren’t lying.
He is some kind of decline.
This is exactly what I was thinking … the comparison with Regan. By the last year or so of Regan’s 2nd term, who was actually running the country?
If Trump is elected, I give it 6 months before he is “clinically diagnosed” and we have ultra conservatives like the Heritage Foundation running the country.
No thanks… I say call him like you see him before he gets even closer to Election Day.
I’m no psychologist but I was the daughter of a father with dementia ( and he wasn’t a megalomaniacal narcissist). And, no, my father could not be an “active member” of his community, much less the leader of the United States. But he was still valued by his family.
exactly!!!!
That he consistently refers to Biden as having dementia means he can make ridiculous statements but others can't about him. It fits a behavior pattern that demeans anyone in Trump's way. Trump calls Biden a crook because Trump is a crook - part of his effort to make everyone as low as he is. Trump slurs words and lines in speeches , gets names wrong, froze for 30 seconds, all things that he'd use daily against Biden. While I agree that making a diagnosis on TV is at best unusual, it is time to treat Trump as he treats his competitors. If he can lie hourly but we have to play by Robert's Rule of Order then we'll have 4 more years at least of Trump.
Chris, with all due respect, you have followed politics for a long time. I am not even a medical professional, but common sense tells you that you actually can diagnose someone in mental decline from afar, simply by longevity of observation. You can’t tell me with a straight face that you — and everyone who follows politics closely, and particularly in person — did not know that Strom Thurmond, Dianne Feinstein, Thad Cochran, and John Conyers were in late stages of dementia. Of course you did. So did everyone else. I had observed them for years, and the decline was obvious and very real. So yeah — it absolutely can be done. I agree that it shouldn’t be done to score political points.
However, the caveat to that is if the other side is going to point out every time Biden takes a faltering step, or that he wears more comfortable shoes now, or takes the shorter flight of stairs, or they claim he is on cocaine when he gives a national speech that wildly exceeded expectations, etc., you are allowed to point out every time your opponent forgets who he is running against, confuses a former rival with the former Speaker of the House, falls asleep at his trial, slurs his words, makes rambling word salad statements, and claims his clearly obese body is the picture of health.
I wish politics was high-minded debate, but that isn’t where we are at now, and you can’t fight a campaign with one hand tied behind your back while the other guy does whatever he wants with impunity. The very fact that you are hand-wringing over accusations of Trump being mentally ill, but just take for granted that Trump will accuse Biden of everything under the sun, is a perfect illustration of why it is needed. You take Trump’s actions as inevitable, including when he has elected and media surrogates spreading the same messages, but leap to opine on Biden supporters engaging in online diagnoses with more restraint and equal evidence. This isn’t bothsideserism, it is an ethical bias. You expect Biden and his supporters to be better — and they are. But you expect an aspiration to perfection, so you have thoughts when he falls short of the ideal. I’m sure he’d rather not do it either, but I’d also rather that he win and feel bad about it, and apologize later. This fever needs to break, and we need a reset.
*edited for spelling and grammar
Okay, you have a valid point. I am familiar with the Goldwater case (it's a fairly famous one in libel law) and get that people should not be diagnosed from a distance.
On the other hand, you of all people know just how incoherent and bizarre Trump's pronouncements have become, even more so than years ago, as you demonstrate every time you pull the "nuttiest" things he said in his most recent speech. His words salads, his contradictions, his projecting his flaws onto others, his bizarre flights of fancy ("the late, great Hannibal Lecter"), are all signs of someone who is seriously unstable, whatever a professional medical diagosis would find. We all have lapses of memories or misspeak, but those calling out Trump recognize that what he is exhibiting -- however you want to define it -- goes far beyond that.
"Tilt" us into authoritarianism? Are you kidding? There is a real possibility that the rethugs in Ohio will not put Biden on the ballot. There is no tilt. We are in a nosedive. Trump will never agree to the appropriate tests for diagnosis. Anyone who cannot see his decline from even 5 years ago is blind or a sycophant.
He may or may not have dementia. But he has always had narcissistic personality disorder, which has CLEARLY worsened over the last 10 years. It was bad enough before...
Ok, I’ll say that Donald J Trump is “exhibiting signs of cognitive decline, and his body habitus suggests physical decline as well.”.Trump is an old man who has not taken good care of himself, eats poorly, exercises little, and the chickens are coming home to roost. On his head. In that nest of “hair”.
Lol! Yes!!🙌🏻
truth!!!
Maybe you can't diagnose dementia from watching someone on TV, but if you have watched El Jefe del Mar A Lardo on the TV since he rode the escalator from hell in 2015, you can definitely see that he doesn't communicate now in 2024 as clearly as he did in 2015 (which wasn't a paradigm in clarity) and if you look at him on The Apprentice and earlier, he communicates much clearer then than today. The way he speaks now - misusing words, making up nonsense words, forgetting words, losing his train of thought - there is certainly something going on. Plus back in 1966, when he was allowed to AUDIT classes at Wharton - not having the grades to qualify for admittance as a regular student - one of his professors from back then recalled him in 2016 as "the dumbest fucking student who ever walked into my classroom." His willful ignorance and public displays of stupidity and lack of understanding of what he's talking about (shine a light inside the human body to fight COVID? Drink bleach? Take a horse medicine for COVID?) show him to certainly be the least mentally-qualified person to be president.
and he still is the dumbest fucking student who ever walked into the White House. And maybe the dumbest to ever get re-elected.
He is not going to get re elected
For the 100th time, NOBODY, including the esteemed Dr. Ibrahim, knows whether or not he will be re-elected. We do not know anything until the votes are cast and counted. As much as any of us want it to be so, that doesn't change the electorate. Until Comey's October 2016 surprise, Hillary was going to win. We all know how well that went.
😂😂😂
Trump is just evil! He will step on or over anyone he can to get his way. He uses others for the hands-on dirty work.
I still think he is unfit to be President because of the actions he took while in office and after. He has tried to overthrow our government, that is Treason! And there is not enough space on the web to list his lies which keep rolling off his lips. Up front is the vicious lie the election was stolen.
He just can’t admit to or face the fact that he is a loser!
Thank you, Chris.
My dad has parkinsons dementia and its hard when I see people attacking Trump for that.
I hate Trump and I think something is wrong with him. I did see your tweet this week. And to be honest, I was more on the other side before reading this article. But after reading it I will have to agree with you.
So many people say and believe things only because it fits their narrative "I hate Trump therefore it must be true that he has dementia". Few people do the research you just did and I really appreciate you and your work. We need more.
Jen Rubin had Alan Gartner on her podcast. His position was that the Goldwater Rule wasn't applicable anymore because we now have the DSM, which has very specific criteria for diagnosing mental illness. I'm with Gartner and Jen on this. Pres Biden has mental lapses that are consistent with normal aging. Dumpy's physical and spoken symptoms are signs of dementia.
Actually, the DSM does not address dementia. Dementia is not a mental health issue it’s a neurological processing disorder that is not something the DSM-5 addresses..
I always find your columns to be soooo informative, humorous , and on point . This one, however, rises above even that plateau of excellent journalism . One of the best you’ve done, my man!
Two people very close to me (my mother and my late wife) died of dementia. I do know something about this and strongly believe that Trump has dementia, as well as other psychological and mental disorders.
Ah Jesus, Chris!
First off, his name is DOCTOR John Gartner and *anyone* who’s been a Professor at Johns Hopkins, one of the finest medical schools and teaching hospitals in the world, certainly needs to be taken seriously.
Secondly, as I’ve pointed out in Comments to your posts RE dementia, let’s be clear that diagnosing narcissistic personality disorder from afar would be unethical, but dementia is not. Gartner, and the 500 mental health professionals that have signed Duty To Warn’s open letter, do the day to day work of diagnosis of dementia. Whether your quick “research” into 2 medical groups and their comments has much bearing, could you allow the likely fact that *some* of what they publish is to hold themselves harmless from legal liability, not unlike putting “CAUTION:HOT LIQUID” on a McDonalds cup of coffee?
Thirdly, the comments and observations of Allen Frances, back in 2017, ie 7 years ago! have virtually NO bearing on a diagnosis of Trump in 2024! If you, like Dr. Gartner and the 500 mental health professionals that are part of Duty To Warn, had actually WATCHED Trump and the change in his mannerisms, speech style, and gaffes, instead of just reading transcripts, you might have more credibility on this one. Sure, they’re observing him “on TV”, but you’re not even doing that!
Sorry, but you’re out of your league here, Chris. I’m finding that more and more, you’re writing to justify your opinions and writing less cogent and detailed analysis of politics (like taking polls at face value without digging in to the crosstabs and just using common sense). I’m disappointed.
I am a psychiatrist. Chris, I agree it is not responsible to diagnose anyone with dementia without a thorough diagnostic evaluation and is certainly not responsible from t v appearances. As you said, there are significant reasons to not trust or vote for Trump, as well as reasons not to vote for or totally trust Biden or many politicians. I also believe it is fair to question the vigor of Biden with his age, but I hope people listen to your plea and stop diagnosing either candidate with dementia