Welcome to The Trump Dementia News
The purpose of this Substack is to document the mental decline of Donald Trump. As a native New Yorker, born and raised on the Upper West Side, stories of Trump’s glamorous life landed him on the covers of magazines and in the society sections of major NY newspapers. He did multiple interviews with Howard Stern through the 80s, 90s; and was provided with a welcoming forum to explain and defend his business practices. He did so descriptively and coherently, successfully exercising restraint while bragging about the lavishness of his social and family life.
Trump rose to prominence in NYC’s “elite” social scene in the 1980’s. On the surface, he led a charmed life, but beneath he was slick enough to mask his greed and corruption. He was able to distract the general public and numerous reporters tasked with reporting on charmed life from focusing on his underhanded business practices and bailouts from his father, with flashy stories of his social life and extravagant construction projects. He was able to calculate ways to avoid paying contractors and other workers in his employ by serially entering bankruptcy and tying workers up in court for years to avoid paying them. His ability to manage all his projects while appearing to be “above board” demonstrates that his cognitive functioning was intact and functioning at a high level through his 30’s and 40’s
This is no longer the case.
He is now in his late 70’s. He confabulates. He confuses people or mashes them together. He starts an idea and then enters a “thought cul-de-sac” in which he circles aimlessly waiting for the rest of his original thoughts to return. When they don’t, he invents rather than remembers.
It is a dangerous decline in which the intelligence and competence that used to overlay Trump’s messages is gone, and all that is left his unbridled, misanthropic pursuit of becoming an authoritarian leader in 2024.
Throughout my career as a clinical psychologist, one of my focuses has been evaluating the manifestations of cognitive decline in patients descending into dementia and other cognitive disorders, and the behavioral changes and disorganized thinking that worsens over time. Sometimes patients can stave off the inevitable degeneration of memory and maintain some level of dependence in their lives. For others, lapses in memory, increase in overall length and frequency, but periods of clarity remain. The pace at which dementia sets in is often unpredictable as the patient’s heredity, internal life and environmental experiences are greatly impactful. There can be periods of clarity followed by lapses in memory. Both states can last minutes, hours, or days, in part depending on level of external pressure in daily life.
At Project Samaritan (PSI), Adult Day Healthcare (ADHC), and Project Renewal I performed hundreds of cognitive evaluations to diagnose dementia when symptoms presented and pinpoint whether their dysfunctions were related to external factors such as a head injury, alcohol/substance abuse, or conversely, if their impairments were hereditary and organic in nature which included determining whether memory challenges reflect the normal process of aging, or if memory impairments checked off more of the boxes for a clinical diagnosis of dementia; as seems to be the case with Trump.
Since 9/11, I have had the honor of working with the Counseling Services Unit (CSU) of New York City Fire Department (FDNY). In the first few years post 9/11, due to the inordinate stress firefighters endure, one of my tasks was to ascertain solely through observation whether a certain member needed to be removed from active duty due to impaired judgment and erratic behavior.
While I no longer do those on-site evaluations, there are firefighters who continue to work with me privately. When asked, I write a detailed assessment of cognitive and emotional functioning which they include as part of the paperwork they submit to begin their retirement process. Those reports always include observations about the effects of trauma and substance use on mental processes. I am typically able to ascertain how that firefighter functioned pre-9/11 (which goes by 2 names: baseline and premorbid functioning). This information is crucial in determining how current functioning compares to previous functioning. Fortunately, we have video and audio on Trump that goes back decades. Therefore, we can determine the onset of symptoms. Given that he is nearly 78; typical dementia signs begin around age 65 or later.
After more than 25 years in private practice, with my non-firefighter patients, I have had the opportunity to take a more longitudinal view, working with a number of patients referred to me who initially presented with early-stage or very mild symptoms of cognitive decline which for some, has become full-blown dementia. In those cases I work with the families on next steps if they don’t already have a plan in place
As a seasoned clinician and diagnostician well versed in identifying cognitive disorders in any setting, over the next few months I will make the case, step-by-step that Donald Trump is demonstrating symptoms of dementia. The Goldwater Rule restricts psychologists from “officially” diagnosing anyone they have not met. So, rather than suggesting an “official diagnosis,” I will evaluate speech patterns, irritability, tangential thinking, “sundowning” phonemic aphasia, delusions, lies and even truths he cannot keep track of, how his ability to grasp the magnitude or seriousness of a situation has deteriorated to an alarming and dangerous level, his tendency to meander “off script during many if not all of his public appearances and instead of driving a point home, he verbally careene in another direction. With the prolific amount of data we already have that clearly demonstrates erosion of cognitive function, I will supply evidence of his decline and explore many other symptoms of dementia that are demonstrated by Donald Trump
We should all be alarmed. There is a clear and present danger in allowing a man whose memory functions are failing and who no longer possesses the restraint needed to temper his impulses, irrational desire for retaliation, revenge fantasies, paranoia, manipulation, unfounded accusations of conspiracies against him, deeply flawed judgment and pathological narcissism to re-ascend to the Presidency
I hope you will join me here for what will unfortunately be a terrifying exploration of a brain that is becoming progressively unhinged from reality and increasingly at the whim of his darkest impulses.
