It has been suggested that this is the plan. This is why Musk et al. supported Vance as the VP candidate (he who seemingly came out of nowhere and is the least liked VP candidate ever). Several months after inauguration, the 25th Amendment will be invoked, Vance, who could never have been elected on his own, will be President. If one really wants to be cynical, if they could hold out for 2 years and 1 day, Vance could finish the remaining term and still be elected 2 more times.
I'm curious if some of the people around him might also have the idea of attempting to manipulate Trump behind the scenes for some amount of time. At this point it doesn't seem like they'd have long. Nonetheless, the reports of his son's involvement in pushing Vance when Trump Sr supposedly was inclined to pick ND governor struck me as disturbing.
I've known this all along. A dastardly plot no doubt contrived by Elon Musk who wants to be the US President by proxy (Elon doesn't qualify since he was born in South Africa) by overthrowing the old king, Donald Trump and a changing of the old guard Steve Bannon, Steve Miller and Roger Stone. The stuff of MacBeth!
Trump is performing a comedy routine. The act is, "I'm letting you in on some behind the scenes info," with pantomime.
Gary Marcus, The Daily Beast, and others interpret one two-second segment of this as a simulated sex act. If you look at the entire context, it is no such thing. He is miming his attempt to speak into a mic that is too low. Watch the clip 20 seconds later. He strikes the same pose while again acting out the mic check:
"...then I walk in like this and I'm bending. Did you notice? I was bending over like this. 'Hello?' And then everybody says, is there something wrong with his back?..."
Then literally 20 seconds later, he says (gesturing to one part of the crowd) "I'm going to give you a free performance back in that corner, you got a bad area back there."
Trump is an entertainer. He honed his chops with World Wide Wrestling, which turns transgression into a fine art. This is not an audience who came to contemplate foreign trade policy or the need to bootstrap energy storage technologies.
None of this is to defend Trump's politics, policies, knowledge, judgment, values, or any of the other qualifications for president. He is known to be willfully ignorant about history and domestic and foreign policy. He's a conman, a crook, a wannabe mob boss, and a cult leader. He may indeed be declining cognitively in some ways, as happens with age. But riffing on whatever he can get away with is not evidence of that. Running from rally to rally is exhausting. Anyone will fumble when tired.
An effective defense against Trumpism and its threat to the American experiment requires an accurate understanding of the situation. The Left is often accused of having Trump Derangement Syndrome. It is not deranged to see how damaging Trump and his enablers are to the country. But when intelligent, qualified, people who should know better mis-portray his act and mis-read his appeal, then that sets us backward.
Yes, I agree completely that there's no simulated sex act. He's simply putting on a performance about a mike position problem.
On the other hand, "LawyerLady" gave hyperlinks to NY Times opinion pieces that say many of the same things that I've commented on for more than a year. His cognitive decline from, say, pre-2000, is very clear. That article has a link to an interview of Trump in 2002, wherein Trump talks about Citizen Kane. He would never say anything close to that in 2024. He's simply no longer mentally capable of saying something like that.
It will be very interesting if Donald Trump's behavior becomes less bizarre, and his ability to speak become better, now that he presumably would have a chance to get some rest, and get off any drugs he might have been taking to make it to the end of the campaign.
If so, then that cuts against any claim of cognitive impairment.
That purported move was performed with incredible subtlety, finesse, and planning. The set-up: "my throat hurts [so I couldn't speak into that too-low mic]". The replay of the head pose 20 seconds later, this time with innocent narration. The patter lacking any hint whatsoever of a lewd interpretation.
When a comedian makes a double entendre, it's more than a tiny sliver. They pause, they wink in some manner, they make sure the audience gets it. Obama's hand gesture at his convention speech was a brilliant comedic move. Not in the gesture itself, but by the giveaway tell: without moving his head, his eyes glanced down at his hands for a split second, as if to take a peek.
Does Trump have that much discipline, to pull this off so smoothly with no boast and barely a smirk? Trump's transgressive persona is crude, careless, and self-indulgent. All indications are, he's really like that all the time.
So then, impaired?, or razer sharp, brilliant performer? What's your pick? I don't give him that much credit. It's neither. He was simply irritably complaining about the mic.
Even without the alarming signs of dementia, the signs of narcissistic personality disorder in this guy are so strong, that no responsible person would want someone like this to hold the most influential job in the world. Unfortunately, there are a lot of irresponsible people in the world.
When his longest-serving Chief of Staff, a former Defense Secretary, and his own former Vice President, aren't even supporters, that says a tremendous amount about the bad. So what's the good?
I can only assume that Gary did not. There is absolutely no way that anyone who watches the full clip could possibly believe that Trump was miming a sex act.
I dunno you guys. I entertained your argument and watched the 4 minute clip. He is absolutely pantomiming oral sex and the crowd knows it too, they react immediately. He's doing it on purpose.
You're right that he seems more lucid in the full clip but this is significantly more obscene than he's been in the past.
I've been in arguments with my husband about this. My grandfather had dementia and increasingly Trump's slips are eerily similar. The Arnold Palmer thing was not normal. The events tripling in length are not normal. And the sexual disinhibition is a real thing with dementia. He's still quite lucid but as others have noted, when this kind of thing picks up steam it can move breathtakingly fast.
The campaigning he's doing is enormously exhausting and would test anyone. But is there something going on that differs substantially from 4 and 8 years ago? Absolutely yes, and we've watched it progress notably over the last six months.
At 3:00 in the video, he does indeed pantomime oral sex. But I think it's less of dementia, and more of him knowing that absolutely nothing he does can hurt him. No matter how crude and disgusting he and the people around him are, he's confident he'll win. And I don't think that's dementia.
He's going on and on about the mike, and using way more foul language than any presidential candidate should, but there's absolutely nothing that indicates he's miming a sex act.
P.S. I've made the point on many forums that it's obvious that Donald Trump has lost many, many steps, mentally, from 20-30+ years ago. He rambles. He uses shorter words. He fumbles for words, and otherwise misspeaks.
IMPORTANT NOTE (added Sunday morning):
I've changed my mind on this. I now think Gary Marcus is correct. I think at 3:00 into the video, Trump does indeed miming fellatio. But I'm not sure it's completely a dementia-related loss of inhibition. I think some part of it is simply that, regardless of how repulsively he behaves, it doesn't seem to repulse voters. And it's not just him. We had the speakers before him at Madison Square Garden calling Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. And this, from Sid Rosenberg, also from the MSG rally:
"She is some sick b******, that Hillary Clinton, huh?" Rosenberg said. "What a sick son of a b****. The whole f****** party. A bunch of degenerates. Lowlives, Jew-haters, and lowlives. Every one of 'em. Every one of 'em."
Yes, I agree that Trump has lost steps mentally, not only from 20 years ago, but also from 4 years ago. But it is counterproductive to make an argument for this that falls apart when examined, as Gary did.
Yes, I agree. Gary, like everyone, loses a lot when he makes a claim that is easily seen to be false.
P.S. Actually, I should amend that. Donald Trump makes claim after claim that is easily seen to be false (e.g. Barack Obama may not have been born in the United States, Haitians in Springfield Ohio are kidnapping and eating dogs and cats, that he knows the "MK-47" and other guns very well, that "I know more about renewables than any human on earth", etc. etc.), but it doesn't seem to have hurt *him* at all.
Because there's an alternative media ecosystem. When anyone says something false or questionable about Trump, that ecosystem is there to play up the "fake news media bias" to 11. When Trump says false things, that same ecosystem faithfully defends, deflects, or just ignores what he said. (There's also, mind you, a heavily biased liberal ecosystem, e.g. MSNBC, but it's smaller and is used as a tool of the conservative ecosystem which conflates liberal and centrist media, treating them as being one and the same and equally bad so you can't trust anyone but us conservatives. I think this pernicious idea that there are only two sides in political debates is really important)
"Because there's an alternative media ecosystem. When anyone says something false or questionable about Trump, that ecosystem is there to play up the "fake news media bias" to 11. When Trump says false things, that same ecosystem faithfully defends, deflects, or just ignores what he said."
What organizations do you think belong to this "alternative media ecosystem"?
What immediately comes to mind is the stuff I know little about, like the small-time right-wing newsletters stuffing my father's email. I imagine there are many thousands of these. Some have specific axe(s) to grind, Joseph Mercola, Steve Kirsch, Daystar, Anthony Watts or Tony Heller, others are ad-revenue chasers riding the coattails of bigger brands. Second, explicitly political groups like "Catholics for Trump" that I noticed in 2016. Third, the big names like Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, InfoWars, etc. It's not always liberals and conservatives; sometimes it's a related dichotomy like elitists vs real Americans, but they all tend toward black-and-white, us-vs-them, fear-oriented worldviews and mentalities.
1. What are the criteria for a diagnosis of dementia and how has Trump met those criteria (hint- a diagnosis of dementia requires more than having 8 signs)?
2. You've already said you're not a clinician, but pretend you were (kind of like an AI) and tell us what your differential diagnosis would include other than dementia.
I've changed my mind, and now agree with Gary Marcus that Donald Trump was indeed pantomiming fellatio at 3:00 into the video. Do you agree?
If we agree that Donald Trump was indeed pantomiming fellatio, one possible reason that does not involve disinhibition due to progressing dementia, is that he simply thinks that such behavior can help him win this election.
Mark, I'm not sure I'm following you (maybe you put your comment in the wrong section?). My two questions for Gary Marcus weren't about whether Trump was pantomiming fellatio at that rally.
But my answer to the question is Trump was ranting about being supplied bad mics and low mic stands and he made a pantomime fellatio joke that the people in the rally laughed at. I think the audience response best answers the question - that Trump pantomiming fellation was a joke and they found it funny. The video you linked to provided context. I've not seen them, but I imagine somebody might make a 5-second clip that leaves out the low mic stand rant and leaves the viewer of a hypothetical 5-sec clip to just assume Trump was pantomiming fellatio for no reason.
"Mark, I'm not sure I'm following you (maybe you put your comment in the wrong section?)."
No, I was responding to your second comment:
"2. You've already said you're not a clinician, but pretend you were (kind of like an AI) and tell us what your differential diagnosis would include other than dementia."
But before I responded to your second point, I wanted to make sure we agreed to a fact. We do agree. He was pantomiming fellatio. And I assume we agree that behavior is extremely unusual in a presidential candidate. In fact, I'm certain it has never happened before. And if someone had said even 10 years ago, that it ever *would* happen--a presidential candidate simulating fellatio at a political rally--I think most people would have said, "No way! That's crazy! That will never happen."
So we both agree that it was extremely unusual behavior, representing a total lack of inhibition. Therefore, the only question is whether that total lack of inhibition stemmed from onsetting dementia or some other possibility. I was putting forward the possibility that Donald Trump has simply come to the conclusion that not following norms of any kind will get him elected President of the United States in a few days.
I already told I thought Trumps pantomiming fellation was a joke following a rant about being provided a mic stand that was too low. I'm sure we both agree about that. I've seen other presidents make jokes, so it's not a first. I'm glad we both agree about this too.
It's not "TDS" to point out that Donald Trump is unique among presidential candidates for cursing, crude sexual comments, and statements of violence. Just in that last video:
He asks the audience, "Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage?" (Simply for not setting up a microphone in a manner that didn't suit him.)
What candidate in presidential history has ever said something like that?
Since Donald Trump has roughly a 50/50 chance of being elected President of the United States in a few days, the fact that Donald Trump's mental capability is declining is very important. It's especially important because the decline is likely to accelerate over the next four years.
That's what I thought the first time (or two) that I watched the video. But then I watched much more carefully. At 3:00 in the video, I now think Gary Marcus and others are correct; he is indeed pantomiming fellatio. And the crowd that's visible seems to love it.
If I was a microphone, and I was sexually assaulted by an overweight elderly male, I would stop working too. In fact, I would go silent for a long, long time.
I’m unsubscribing because the author has moved away from using this channel to ideate about AI content in favor of partisan political content ideation about the US election. In addition to the latest post speculating about a US presidential candidate’s mental health, the author has also suspended or at a minimum, threatened to suspend countering thoughts and opinions from subscribers in the comments. Unfortunately this Substack channel no longer advances intellectual curiosity on AI progress and advancements.
"His daughter's a very dumb individual. Very dumb. She's a radical warhawk. Let's put her with the rifles with nine barrels shooting at her. OK? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face."
This is what Trump said about Liz Cheney, verbatim.
"(As I noted in a followup clarification, “Strictly speaking Trump didn’t literally threaten Cheney with violence; he merely ideated about her having 9 rifles pointed at her. From the perspective of the point I was making — that he can’t keep his mouth shut about his socially inappropriate thoughts (disinhibition) - this makes no difference.”)"
Mr. Marcus,
You completely missed the point of what he said. It was not inappropriate at all.
The point he was making was not lost on veterans or families who have lost friends and loved ones in pointless, stupid wars that were engineered by the military-industrial complex.
He brought up something that should be the beginning of a national discussion.
Thanks for everything you post, your work is very important.
If your interpretation is correct, it shines a bright spotlight upon the irony of Cadet Bonespurs questioning the bravery of one of the vanishingly small number of Republicans in possession of even a modicum of courage.
It has been suggested that this is the plan. This is why Musk et al. supported Vance as the VP candidate (he who seemingly came out of nowhere and is the least liked VP candidate ever). Several months after inauguration, the 25th Amendment will be invoked, Vance, who could never have been elected on his own, will be President. If one really wants to be cynical, if they could hold out for 2 years and 1 day, Vance could finish the remaining term and still be elected 2 more times.
yep
Watching the video's, that thought entered my brain too. Billionaires buying the US - at a rather cheap price ?
And cheaper for Russia than Ukraine.
I'm curious if some of the people around him might also have the idea of attempting to manipulate Trump behind the scenes for some amount of time. At this point it doesn't seem like they'd have long. Nonetheless, the reports of his son's involvement in pushing Vance when Trump Sr supposedly was inclined to pick ND governor struck me as disturbing.
I've known this all along. A dastardly plot no doubt contrived by Elon Musk who wants to be the US President by proxy (Elon doesn't qualify since he was born in South Africa) by overthrowing the old king, Donald Trump and a changing of the old guard Steve Bannon, Steve Miller and Roger Stone. The stuff of MacBeth!
Have I stumbled upon a progressive form of Q anon?
Haha, time will tell....but Elon wanted something for his money.
Exactly
Please watch the entire clip of the microphone schtick, about 4 minutes.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5139793/president-trump-jokes-microphone-issues
Trump is performing a comedy routine. The act is, "I'm letting you in on some behind the scenes info," with pantomime.
Gary Marcus, The Daily Beast, and others interpret one two-second segment of this as a simulated sex act. If you look at the entire context, it is no such thing. He is miming his attempt to speak into a mic that is too low. Watch the clip 20 seconds later. He strikes the same pose while again acting out the mic check:
"...then I walk in like this and I'm bending. Did you notice? I was bending over like this. 'Hello?' And then everybody says, is there something wrong with his back?..."
Then literally 20 seconds later, he says (gesturing to one part of the crowd) "I'm going to give you a free performance back in that corner, you got a bad area back there."
Trump is an entertainer. He honed his chops with World Wide Wrestling, which turns transgression into a fine art. This is not an audience who came to contemplate foreign trade policy or the need to bootstrap energy storage technologies.
None of this is to defend Trump's politics, policies, knowledge, judgment, values, or any of the other qualifications for president. He is known to be willfully ignorant about history and domestic and foreign policy. He's a conman, a crook, a wannabe mob boss, and a cult leader. He may indeed be declining cognitively in some ways, as happens with age. But riffing on whatever he can get away with is not evidence of that. Running from rally to rally is exhausting. Anyone will fumble when tired.
An effective defense against Trumpism and its threat to the American experiment requires an accurate understanding of the situation. The Left is often accused of having Trump Derangement Syndrome. It is not deranged to see how damaging Trump and his enablers are to the country. But when intelligent, qualified, people who should know better mis-portray his act and mis-read his appeal, then that sets us backward.
Yes, I agree completely that there's no simulated sex act. He's simply putting on a performance about a mike position problem.
On the other hand, "LawyerLady" gave hyperlinks to NY Times opinion pieces that say many of the same things that I've commented on for more than a year. His cognitive decline from, say, pre-2000, is very clear. That article has a link to an interview of Trump in 2002, wherein Trump talks about Citizen Kane. He would never say anything close to that in 2024. He's simply no longer mentally capable of saying something like that.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/politics/trump-speeches-age-cognitive-decline.html
Indeed. To call Donald Trump "mentally undisciplined" would be extremely charitable.
'It's like that old movie...Citizen...Citizen...Citizen's Arrest. Of Illegals. They're coming over the border, they're eating dogs and cats.'
It will be very interesting if Donald Trump's behavior becomes less bizarre, and his ability to speak become better, now that he presumably would have a chance to get some rest, and get off any drugs he might have been taking to make it to the end of the campaign.
I'm glad we all agree there was no simulated sex act.
I've changed my mind. I now think Gary Marcus and others are right, as extraordinary as that is. Look at 3:00 into the video.:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5139793/president-trump-jokes-microphone-issues
The clip you posted is a news report, here is the full 4 minutes of what Trump said:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5139793/president-trump-jokes-microphone-issues
Thank you. I edited my post to replace the link with the c-span link that you found.
He was blowin that mic bro
If so, then that cuts against any claim of cognitive impairment.
That purported move was performed with incredible subtlety, finesse, and planning. The set-up: "my throat hurts [so I couldn't speak into that too-low mic]". The replay of the head pose 20 seconds later, this time with innocent narration. The patter lacking any hint whatsoever of a lewd interpretation.
When a comedian makes a double entendre, it's more than a tiny sliver. They pause, they wink in some manner, they make sure the audience gets it. Obama's hand gesture at his convention speech was a brilliant comedic move. Not in the gesture itself, but by the giveaway tell: without moving his head, his eyes glanced down at his hands for a split second, as if to take a peek.
Does Trump have that much discipline, to pull this off so smoothly with no boast and barely a smirk? Trump's transgressive persona is crude, careless, and self-indulgent. All indications are, he's really like that all the time.
So then, impaired?, or razer sharp, brilliant performer? What's your pick? I don't give him that much credit. It's neither. He was simply irritably complaining about the mic.
Even without the alarming signs of dementia, the signs of narcissistic personality disorder in this guy are so strong, that no responsible person would want someone like this to hold the most influential job in the world. Unfortunately, there are a lot of irresponsible people in the world.
i am blocking you for one week, for making false allegations about what i said re Biden
How arrogant you are!
What’s the good exactly?
His first term we didn't start any new wars, which is the first time that happened since Carter.
"His first term we didn't start any new wars,..."
So killing Iranian general Qassem Soleimani via U.S. drone strike wasn't an act of war?
Good question!
When his longest-serving Chief of Staff, a former Defense Secretary, and his own former Vice President, aren't even supporters, that says a tremendous amount about the bad. So what's the good?
Dear Gary,
I’m happy to read what you have to say, and your Foreword is up front & explanatory, so what follows afterward seems to flow from that naturally.
In short, you say you were a professor in psychology, so it follows you can write on psychological issues.
I hate to think I need to thank someone for writing authoritatively & clearly, but that seems to be our world now.
Thank you.
I have now watched the full 4-minute clip of the microphone incident:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5139793/president-trump-jokes-microphone-issues
I can only assume that Gary did not. There is absolutely no way that anyone who watches the full clip could possibly believe that Trump was miming a sex act.
I dunno you guys. I entertained your argument and watched the 4 minute clip. He is absolutely pantomiming oral sex and the crowd knows it too, they react immediately. He's doing it on purpose.
You're right that he seems more lucid in the full clip but this is significantly more obscene than he's been in the past.
I've been in arguments with my husband about this. My grandfather had dementia and increasingly Trump's slips are eerily similar. The Arnold Palmer thing was not normal. The events tripling in length are not normal. And the sexual disinhibition is a real thing with dementia. He's still quite lucid but as others have noted, when this kind of thing picks up steam it can move breathtakingly fast.
The campaigning he's doing is enormously exhausting and would test anyone. But is there something going on that differs substantially from 4 and 8 years ago? Absolutely yes, and we've watched it progress notably over the last six months.
Yes, I watched it one more time, more carefully. I've changed my mind. I think Gary Marcus and you are right.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5139793/president-trump-jokes-microphone-issues
At 3:00 in the video, he does indeed pantomime oral sex. But I think it's less of dementia, and more of him knowing that absolutely nothing he does can hurt him. No matter how crude and disgusting he and the people around him are, he's confident he'll win. And I don't think that's dementia.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-new-york-madison-rally-shocking-racist-vulgar-comments-jokes-1975718
Yes, I agree. It's not close.
He's going on and on about the mike, and using way more foul language than any presidential candidate should, but there's absolutely nothing that indicates he's miming a sex act.
P.S. I've made the point on many forums that it's obvious that Donald Trump has lost many, many steps, mentally, from 20-30+ years ago. He rambles. He uses shorter words. He fumbles for words, and otherwise misspeaks.
IMPORTANT NOTE (added Sunday morning):
I've changed my mind on this. I now think Gary Marcus is correct. I think at 3:00 into the video, Trump does indeed miming fellatio. But I'm not sure it's completely a dementia-related loss of inhibition. I think some part of it is simply that, regardless of how repulsively he behaves, it doesn't seem to repulse voters. And it's not just him. We had the speakers before him at Madison Square Garden calling Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. And this, from Sid Rosenberg, also from the MSG rally:
"She is some sick b******, that Hillary Clinton, huh?" Rosenberg said. "What a sick son of a b****. The whole f****** party. A bunch of degenerates. Lowlives, Jew-haters, and lowlives. Every one of 'em. Every one of 'em."
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-new-york-madison-rally-shocking-racist-vulgar-comments-jokes-1975718
Yes, I agree that Trump has lost steps mentally, not only from 20 years ago, but also from 4 years ago. But it is counterproductive to make an argument for this that falls apart when examined, as Gary did.
Yes, I agree. Gary, like everyone, loses a lot when he makes a claim that is easily seen to be false.
P.S. Actually, I should amend that. Donald Trump makes claim after claim that is easily seen to be false (e.g. Barack Obama may not have been born in the United States, Haitians in Springfield Ohio are kidnapping and eating dogs and cats, that he knows the "MK-47" and other guns very well, that "I know more about renewables than any human on earth", etc. etc.), but it doesn't seem to have hurt *him* at all.
Because there's an alternative media ecosystem. When anyone says something false or questionable about Trump, that ecosystem is there to play up the "fake news media bias" to 11. When Trump says false things, that same ecosystem faithfully defends, deflects, or just ignores what he said. (There's also, mind you, a heavily biased liberal ecosystem, e.g. MSNBC, but it's smaller and is used as a tool of the conservative ecosystem which conflates liberal and centrist media, treating them as being one and the same and equally bad so you can't trust anyone but us conservatives. I think this pernicious idea that there are only two sides in political debates is really important)
"Because there's an alternative media ecosystem. When anyone says something false or questionable about Trump, that ecosystem is there to play up the "fake news media bias" to 11. When Trump says false things, that same ecosystem faithfully defends, deflects, or just ignores what he said."
What organizations do you think belong to this "alternative media ecosystem"?
What immediately comes to mind is the stuff I know little about, like the small-time right-wing newsletters stuffing my father's email. I imagine there are many thousands of these. Some have specific axe(s) to grind, Joseph Mercola, Steve Kirsch, Daystar, Anthony Watts or Tony Heller, others are ad-revenue chasers riding the coattails of bigger brands. Second, explicitly political groups like "Catholics for Trump" that I noticed in 2016. Third, the big names like Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, InfoWars, etc. It's not always liberals and conservatives; sometimes it's a related dichotomy like elitists vs real Americans, but they all tend toward black-and-white, us-vs-them, fear-oriented worldviews and mentalities.
Just as there is no universe in which what Trump said about Liz Cheney could be considered anything close to a threat.
PS I don't support Trump.
Could you please provide links to the many articles you wrote documenting Biden's obvious decline?
his decline was not obvious until the debate. i supported the proposal to replace him. he is no longer a candidate.
trump: i only commented on his dementia recently when it took a sharp turn down, because he is a candidate.
You say Trump has dementia.
1. What are the criteria for a diagnosis of dementia and how has Trump met those criteria (hint- a diagnosis of dementia requires more than having 8 signs)?
2. You've already said you're not a clinician, but pretend you were (kind of like an AI) and tell us what your differential diagnosis would include other than dementia.
You asked this of Gary Marcus, but I'll reply...first with a question myself:
Do you agree that Donald Trump is pantomiming fellatio at 3:00 into this video?
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5139793/president-trump-jokes-microphone-issues
I've changed my mind, and now agree with Gary Marcus that Donald Trump was indeed pantomiming fellatio at 3:00 into the video. Do you agree?
If we agree that Donald Trump was indeed pantomiming fellatio, one possible reason that does not involve disinhibition due to progressing dementia, is that he simply thinks that such behavior can help him win this election.
Mark, I'm not sure I'm following you (maybe you put your comment in the wrong section?). My two questions for Gary Marcus weren't about whether Trump was pantomiming fellatio at that rally.
But my answer to the question is Trump was ranting about being supplied bad mics and low mic stands and he made a pantomime fellatio joke that the people in the rally laughed at. I think the audience response best answers the question - that Trump pantomiming fellation was a joke and they found it funny. The video you linked to provided context. I've not seen them, but I imagine somebody might make a 5-second clip that leaves out the low mic stand rant and leaves the viewer of a hypothetical 5-sec clip to just assume Trump was pantomiming fellatio for no reason.
"Mark, I'm not sure I'm following you (maybe you put your comment in the wrong section?)."
No, I was responding to your second comment:
"2. You've already said you're not a clinician, but pretend you were (kind of like an AI) and tell us what your differential diagnosis would include other than dementia."
But before I responded to your second point, I wanted to make sure we agreed to a fact. We do agree. He was pantomiming fellatio. And I assume we agree that behavior is extremely unusual in a presidential candidate. In fact, I'm certain it has never happened before. And if someone had said even 10 years ago, that it ever *would* happen--a presidential candidate simulating fellatio at a political rally--I think most people would have said, "No way! That's crazy! That will never happen."
So we both agree that it was extremely unusual behavior, representing a total lack of inhibition. Therefore, the only question is whether that total lack of inhibition stemmed from onsetting dementia or some other possibility. I was putting forward the possibility that Donald Trump has simply come to the conclusion that not following norms of any kind will get him elected President of the United States in a few days.
I've changed my mind. Trump did not simulate fellatio. It was a non-fellatio joke about a mic stand that was too low. I know you agree with me.
I already told I thought Trumps pantomiming fellation was a joke following a rant about being provided a mic stand that was too low. I'm sure we both agree about that. I've seen other presidents make jokes, so it's not a first. I'm glad we both agree about this too.
It was mentioned long before that 😉
Google “whataboutism” classic fallacy
Google "TDS" classic mind virus
The only TDS I see are cultists ponying up for overpriced sneakers and NFTs of homoerotic Trump fan art. Now THAT's deranged!
It's not "TDS" to point out that Donald Trump is unique among presidential candidates for cursing, crude sexual comments, and statements of violence. Just in that last video:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5139793/president-trump-jokes-microphone-issues
He asks the audience, "Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage?" (Simply for not setting up a microphone in a manner that didn't suit him.)
What candidate in presidential history has ever said something like that?
Oh yes, he should really do that and maybe the Dems will do the responsible thing and pull him off the ticket.
You simple twit.
If this is the most important post you’ve ever written, I’m going to have to look more skeptically at all your other posts.
Since Donald Trump has roughly a 50/50 chance of being elected President of the United States in a few days, the fact that Donald Trump's mental capability is declining is very important. It's especially important because the decline is likely to accelerate over the next four years.
If you watch the full clip you can see that Trump is complaining about the quality of the mic, he is not doing anything sexual..
That's what I thought the first time (or two) that I watched the video. But then I watched much more carefully. At 3:00 in the video, I now think Gary Marcus and others are correct; he is indeed pantomiming fellatio. And the crowd that's visible seems to love it.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5139793/president-trump-jokes-microphone-issues
It's not either or
You might like this: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Vru5lYLRStdEMFJjOd0Hn?si=s0GkDkX3QYWbzcQoLlIhzw
Ezra Klein reflecting on Trump and his most defining trait: extremely high in disinhibition.
We call it dementia; Trump calls it 'the weave'.
Thank you for writing this
If I was a microphone, and I was sexually assaulted by an overweight elderly male, I would stop working too. In fact, I would go silent for a long, long time.
I’m unsubscribing because the author has moved away from using this channel to ideate about AI content in favor of partisan political content ideation about the US election. In addition to the latest post speculating about a US presidential candidate’s mental health, the author has also suspended or at a minimum, threatened to suspend countering thoughts and opinions from subscribers in the comments. Unfortunately this Substack channel no longer advances intellectual curiosity on AI progress and advancements.
OK BYE NOBODY CARES
"His daughter's a very dumb individual. Very dumb. She's a radical warhawk. Let's put her with the rifles with nine barrels shooting at her. OK? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face."
This is what Trump said about Liz Cheney, verbatim.
"(As I noted in a followup clarification, “Strictly speaking Trump didn’t literally threaten Cheney with violence; he merely ideated about her having 9 rifles pointed at her. From the perspective of the point I was making — that he can’t keep his mouth shut about his socially inappropriate thoughts (disinhibition) - this makes no difference.”)"
Mr. Marcus,
You completely missed the point of what he said. It was not inappropriate at all.
The point he was making was not lost on veterans or families who have lost friends and loved ones in pointless, stupid wars that were engineered by the military-industrial complex.
He brought up something that should be the beginning of a national discussion.
Thanks for everything you post, your work is very important.
If your interpretation is correct, it shines a bright spotlight upon the irony of Cadet Bonespurs questioning the bravery of one of the vanishingly small number of Republicans in possession of even a modicum of courage.
He didn't question her bravery at all.
The true irony is that while it has been said in the past, Cadet Bonespurs managed to state it more forcefully than ever before.