“At least seven times”
You know the major media outlets have dropped the ball in refusing to cover Donald Trump’s worsening senility when Saturday Night Live beat them to the punch this past weekend. When a comedy sketch show is willing to admit something that 95% of the political media has been afraid to say, then something is wrong.
But as so often happens, now that the political comedians are talking about the thing that the political media has been avoiding saying, the political media suddenly feels that it has to catch up.
Accordingly, Forbes is now running a headline pointing out that Trump has gotten Biden and Obama confused “at least seven times.” This is good. The media is finally acknowledging that there’s something really wrong with Trump’s cognitive abilities. Unfortunately, that same Forbes headline referred to these as “gaffes” when they’re really not.
A gaffe is when you know what you’re saying, but you randomly misspeak while saying it. It’s a one-off. What we’re seeing with Trump is repeated failure to distinguish between Obama, his political rival a decade ago back when Trump’s mind was more intact, and Biden, Trump’s current political rival. This isn’t misspeaking, it’s mental confusion. Trump no longer fully understands that these are two different people, which is why he keeps getting it wrong.
Even if you wanted to write this off as Trump simply misspeaking in the same manner over and over again, saying “Obama” when he means “Biden” like it’s a verbal tic or something, that falls apart when you put it within the context of Trump’s continual confusion on so many other things. He’s also gotten Obama confused with Hillary Clinton. He thinks we’ve only had one world war. These aren’t gaffes. These are cognitive failures. This is dementia. Senility. Take the pick of the term you want to use, but Trump’s brain is failing. Rapidly. Right in front of us all. It shouldn’t take a Saturday Night Live sketch for the media to finally begin taking the topic seriously.
