Donald Trump is now so senile he doesn’t seem to know his family anymore
Donald Trump’s recent public appearances have given away that he’s losing track of who his political adversaries and allies are. He thinks Nikki Haley is Nancy Pelosi. He didn’t appear to remember who his potential running mate Elise Stefanik was when he saw he name on the teleprompter. It was a matter of time before he started losing track of his family. And now that time has arrived.
The most concerning moment for Trump in recent months was when he was asked about his son Barron and couldn’t come up with anything other than that he’s tall. Other observers interpreted this as a lack of interest on the part of a negligent father. But we pegged it as Trump seemingly having lost track of every memory and exchange he’s ever had with the kid, no matter how superficial. Trump didn’t seem to remember anything about Barron at all, other than that he was this tall person wandering around. Now it turns out Barron isn’t the only immediate relative who’s disappearing from Trump’s fading mind.
On Saturday a clip went viral in which Donald Trump appeared to either refer to his wife Melania Trump as “Mercedes,” or perhaps he referred to Mercedes Schlapp as his wife. There was some debate as to whether this was actually a senile moment on Trump’s part. But then on Saturday evening Trump spoke again and erased all doubt.
When Donald Trump went to thank his family members, he had to read their names off a card. That was bad enough. But even with the card, he still skipped over Eric Trump and his wife. Trump is at a point of senility where his handlers didn’t think he’d be able to remember the names of all his kids, so they put it on a card for him. Worse, Trump now lacks the cognitive skills to read five pairs of names off a card without mistakenly skipping over one of them.
This is the “Person Woman Man Camera TV” test – and Trump just showed that he can’t pass it. Actually, this is worse. This would be like if Trump were handed a card that said “Person Woman Man Camera TV” and couldn’t figure out how to read all five of them off the card without skipping over “Camera.”
The excuses keep getting made for Trump. Some on social media have suggested that he was merely telling Mercedes Schlapp how great it was that the entire room was applauding for Melania Trump, as if Trump saying this in the middle of a speech would somehow make it less senile. Others are suggesting that perhaps Eric and his wife weren’t on the card. But come on, does anyone really believe that? Tiffany Trump and her husband were on the card, and they’re almost never around. The excuses to explain away Trump’s senile moments keep becoming a bigger and bigger reach, as his senility keeps getting worse.
The cold hard reality is that Donald Trump is now so senile, his own people are scrambling to try to work around it. Otherwise, why would they have put his family members on a card and given it to him? They knew he wasn’t going to be able to list off his immediately family otherwise. And it turns out he couldn’t list off his immediate family even with the card in front of him. He’s cognitively done.
One positive sign is that we’re at least getting to the point where the media is starting to talk about how the media doesn’t talk enough about Trump’s senility. MSNBC made a point on Saturday evening of pointing out that Trump needed a card to identity his family, and that his speech was completely incoherent, even while asking why the media prefers talking about Biden’s occasional minor gaffes. Of course MSNBC has spent the past couple years being guilty of precisely what it’s now condemning other media outlets for. But at least we’re getting to the point where the media is talking about Trump’s senility openly.
The good news, politically speaking, is that Donald Trump’s condition is only going to get worse. Rapidly advancing dementia keeps rapidly advancing. As senile as Trump was a month or two ago, he’s so much worse off now. Imagine where he’ll be in another month or two.
We said it was only a matter of time before Trump started forgetting his family, and now that’s happening. What’s next? Total lack of awareness of what’s going on and what’s considered socially appropriate. Pretty soon he’ll be standing at the podium and think he’s in the bathroom and drop his pants, or something along those lines. It’s going to get ugly. It’s already ugly. But it’s going to get ugly.
There’s a reason Nikki Haley is still sticking around in the race, and it’s not just that Donald Trump is headed for criminal trial and prison. The odds are sharply increasing that Trump will totally flame out on the dementia front before he can lock up the nomination at this summer’s Republican National Convention. If Trump starts peeing on his lectern during his speeches before then, is he still going to come out of the convention with the nomination? That’s anyone’s guess.
All we know for certain is that Trump’s cognitive condition is going to keep declining rapidly. He already can’t remember his family. If you’ve watched someone succumbing to this disease, and you’ve seen them reach this point, you know how it goes from here.
