Six years ago, when I was in the ICU — vision melting, suspicion of a stroke, all that jazz — I took the cognitive tests that Donald Trump likes to brag about. That was part of the stroke protocol, along with various motor tests. I was happy when, after the second day, I didn’t have to take them any more. I hadn’t had a stroke.
I would not now, and did not then, brag, the way Trump does repeatedly, about the cognitive tests. One, because they’re something you take when something serious might be wrong in the brain. And two, because I did not do as well as Trump, and that’s okay. I couldn’t repeat the “five random words,” which Trump likes to cite as a sign of his intelligence, because my brain wouldn’t and didn’t latch onto ephemeral information like that. And I had some issues with knowing when I was, but I was in a hospital and it’s really damn hard to keep track of time there. (Plus, I have long been challenged with knowing when I am.) So, I have a record in my medical chart for “Confusion.”
I am officially Confused, and I am damn proud of it. 🙂
I am also not the President of the United States. Asking questions of his mental fitness is both fair and necessary. And his aggressive response to questions about his mental fitness is itself a concerning sign that his mental fitness has a right to be questioned.
For my part, I’ve seen enough, as Dave Wasserman would say. Trump has dementia, and for his sake and the sake of the country, as well as the world, he needs to be removed from office.
That Trump has been given this [cognitive] test at least three times per his own description should be extraordinarily alarming, assuming you believe that the possibility that Trump is in the early stages of some form of dementia is a bad thing. It should be setting off alarm bells because patients are given this test only if health professionals have a serious concern that dementia is present. Certainly administering the test multiple times is a massive red flag.
The astounding fact that the president of the United States is, according to the president himself, being tested for dementia repeatedly is somehow being treated by our political, legal, and media institutions with a truly astonishing level of denial and/or insouciance.
— Paul Campos