Dancing Donald Trump Is Clearly in a Steep Decline | Opinion

For 38 minutes or so, former President Donald Trump was in a happy place. After some people collapsed at his town hall, Trump got frustrated, decided he’d had enough softball questions from Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) and asked to play music. For nearly 40 minutes, Trump kept asking for more music, swaying oddly in front of the crowd, occasionally closing his eyes, and retreating to a comforting place in his mind, like being wrapped in a warm blanket.

For those of us who’ve had family members slip into dementia, it was a familiar sight. Both of my grandmothers suffered it near the ends of their lives. Even before they were sent to nursing homes, they started to exhibit increased frustration and even anger. My maternal grandmother accused her caretaker of purposely turning the shower knob too tight so she would have to come in and see my grandmother naked. But she also liked to sing old-time songs she remembered. She had her happy place—an oasis in a time of increasing confusion. Then, there were other times she was completely lucid. She would talk about the situation in the Middle East (which was still a thing back then, too) with total clarity. There were good days and there were bad days.

It isn’t like we haven’t seen Trump’s behavior with our own eyes. It isn’t like media hasn’t noticed it, either. And yet, no one seems to want to talk about the distinct possibility that Trump is well on the way to the same state my grandmothers found themselves in and that millions of Americans find friends and family in – severe cognitive decline, if not outright dementia.

Politico noted that Trump’s language is getting darker and angrier than it used to be. Doctors have noticed his speech patterns point to decline, as well. His campaign has bizarrely and very abruptly canceled interviews with 60 Minutes and CNBC. He confuses the gender of people he talks about. He keeps saying that he is running against President Biden. He confused the name of his doctor, when talking about his cognitive test.

Clips of him in 2016 and now show a very sharp decline and inability to maintain a train of thought.

Angry, frustrated, confused, unable to focus. And now, he retreats to his happy place in a time of stress. Put it all together and ask yourself if that’s someone you’d trust to take care of your kids in a house with a working stove.

And yes, there are moments when he sounds like the Donald Trump of old. There are flashes of that from time to time. Like my grandmothers did, he has his good days and bad days.

But for media and voters to continue to contend that Trump is just some odd duck who does unconventional things, is even more irresponsible than family members who try to explain away the very clear decline of their loved ones, to avoid the painful truth.

It’s more irresponsible because we’re talking about putting this man into the most powerful seat on the face of the earth. A seat where he can wipe out lives with a stroke of a pen or a push of a button (something he’s fantasized about doing). A seat where he can deploy the military to go after people he gets paranoid about. A seat where he may have to make split-second decisions with your life and your family’s lives in the balance.

While there may be guardrails in normal times to protect us from someone in mental decline holding this office, Project 2025 removes nearly all of them. Trump, himself has said he won’t repeat the “mistake” of having people around him who will stop him.

Whatever Trump says he wants done, whether on a mentally good day or bad, will be done. Let that sink in. Anything he says he wants done.

The quick retort from MAGA will be, “Where was this argument with Joe Biden?”

But the media did constantly obsess over Biden’s mental state, before he stepped aside. It was an issue. Voters, too, considered it and were clear-eyed.

Trump deserves the same scrutiny. And if he gets it, the picture becomes clear.

Donald Trump’s mind is not well. It’s failing. It won’t get better.

It’s time to get honest about it.

Eric Schmeltzer is a Los Angeles-based political consultant who served as press secretary to Rep. Jerry Nadler and former-Gov. Howard Dean.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.