Has anyone noticed that Donald Trump, at age 78, is no longer capable of expressing a cogent thought? He is not the man he was in 2016, and the decline should scare us.
You might not appreciate how much ground he has lost if you only read the snippets. Because reporters covering his rallies often try to help their readers make sense of Trump’s rambling by quoting short excepts, couched by their own interpretations of what he probably meant to say. There’s even a new term for it – sanewashing.
But read a full transcript, and you can see why a cognitive test is in order, and why it’s a serious problem that Trump has refused to release his medical records.
Take a look at this ramble, from an appearance with Tucker Carlson:
“So, we built a thing called the Panama Canal. We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets. It was one of the true great wonders of the world. As he said, ‘One of the nine wonders of the world.’ No, no, it was one of the seven. It just happened a little while ago. You know, he says, ‘Nine wonders of the world.’ You could make nine wonders. He would’ve been better off if he stuck with the nine and just said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s nine.’”
Or this one, from a rally earlier this year in Georgia, talking about President Biden in a swimsuit at the beach, for reasons unknown:
“Look, at 81 — do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people. Today we have — I won’t say names because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was like, Michael Jackson once told me, ‘The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.’ Who? ‘Cary Grant.’ Well, we don’t have that anymore. But Cary Grant at 81 or 82 — going on 100, this guy, he’s 81 going on 100 — Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit either, and he was pretty good-looking, right?”
Ballast
Article URL : https://www.nj.com/opinion/2024/10/face-it-donald-trump-at-78-has-lost-his-grip-moran.html