How Trump's Speeches Are a Red Flag for Mental Decline: Experts [View all]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/confused-incoherent-trumps-speeches-show-signs-of-mental-decline-nyt-analysis?ref=home?ref=home

Daily Beast

“I can’t tell you how staggering this is,” a social psychologist previously told Stat News. “He does not think in a complex way at all.”

Sean Craig
Reporter
Updated Oct. 06, 2024 10:46AM EDT / Published Oct. 06, 2024 9:55AM EDT

An increasingly incoherent and profane former president Donald Trump, 78, is rambling at his rallies at previously unheard-of lengths and showing signs of confusion that could indicate mental decline, according to a New York Times analysis.

An average rally speech by the elderly Republican nominee for president—who has promised to release his medical records and cognitive tests and then refused to do so—lasts 82 minutes this election cycle, nearly double the 45 minutes he averaged in 2016, a computer analysis by the newspaper found.

In addition to Trump’s well documented rambling, repetitive and winding addresses—punctuated with strange asides about things like his “beautiful” body—among the potential signs of cognitive change are that he curses 69 percent more in speeches than he did in 2016. That could be a sign of disinhibition, a kind of impulsivity that is sometimes attributed to mental decline in old age, the Times said.

The newspaper also said its analysis found Trump used negative words 32 percent more negative words than positive ones, up considerably from 21 percent in 2016, another potential indicator of cognitive change.

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