# Is Trump confused? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [January 24, 2024, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589 "2024-01-24T13:53:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 166
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3334 "2024-11-03T10:57:00Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > “I consider myself to be the father of fertilization” Well, TBF nobody slings bullshit as much as he does. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3335 "2024-11-03T13:27:17Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > “There are some women that are very beautiful in the audience. I would never say that, because if I said like that that her her her her her. If I said they were beautiful, that’s the end of my political career. You’re not allowed to say a woman is beaut.” I mean, the sheer number of times he’s told a women she’s beautiful only for her to turn around and say “Get the hell out of the women’s changing room!”… ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3336 "2024-11-03T14:31:25Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > As much as the conservatives on the Court may favor Trump’s policies, they know that if they help him become a dictator they’ll be making themselves obsolete. If it comes down to it, they’ll choose to preserve their own power over enabling him. The risk, as everyone who’s had their face eaten has learned, is misunderstanding, or misundersestimating, how the future will unfold. You believe you can control the situation. And you succeed. Until suddenly you don’t. The only way to win for sure is not to play. But it sure looks like you can win for a long time, maybe indefinitely while playing with fire. That logic applies to everyone from SCOTUS down to most ordinary schmucks who are trumpies. FAFO applies, and the whole country may be about to learn that irresponsible actions have unpredictable and often disastrous consequences. @DrDeth: for the record, and ref your earlier quote of me … I don’t now believe that the SCOTUS is simply a traditional R or trump / MAGA rubberstamp. I do believe some of them lean sympathetic that way. And I also think that plenty of election-related cases will need to be heard, appealed, _cert_ed, and decided by SCOTUS in a big hurry in the next ~3 months. Which necessary haste may bring low quality decision-making based on low quality evidence. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3337 "2024-11-03T15:24:47Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [Trump:] “When I say insane asylums, and then I say, Doctor Hannibal Lecter, does anybody know? They go crazy. They say, oh, he brings up these names out of— Well, that’s genius. Right. Doctor Hannibal Lecter. There’s nobody worse than him. Silence of the Lambs. Who the hell else would even remember that? I have a great memory, but they always hit me. I don’t bring it up too much because they have to take such a— he brought up Hannibal Lecter. What does that have to do with this? What is it? It has everything to do with it, right? He was… So I’ve done something for you for you that I haven’t done in 20 speeches. I brought up Doctor Hannibal Lecter and we’re allowing him, you watch, you watch these fake people will say again, he brought up Hannibal Lecter has absolutely nothing to do. You know I do the weave, right? The weave. It’s genius. You bring up Hannibal Lecter, you mention insane asylum. Hannibal Lecter. You go out, no. There’ll be a time in life where the weave won’t finish properly at the bottom and then we can talk. But right now it’s pure genius. Hey, I have an uncle, my uncle, Uncle John, my father’s brother, 41 years at MIT, longest serving professor has so many degrees, he didn’t know what the hell to do with them all in the most complicated. I understand a lot of this stuff, you know, I believe in that. Like, I mean, Jack Nicklaus is not gonna produce a bad golfer. Right. You know, that’s the way it works. It’s just one of those things and it’s in the family and it’s whatever” To paraphrase Lecter: “Clarice, doesn’t this random scattering of sentences seem desperately random - like the elaborations of a bad liar?” ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3338 "2024-11-03T15:35:11Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Uncle John, my father’s brother, 41 years at MIT, longest serving professor has so many degrees, he didn’t know what the hell to do with them all in the most complicated. Just touching on this, as yet another example of Trump needlessly inflating crap. Yes, his uncle John Trump was a renowned professor at MIT. “So many degrees, he didn’t know what the hell to do with them all” apparently means “three degrees” (BS, MS, DSc). And… > [@](#): > > Although Donald Trump has frequently claimed his uncle was the longest serving professor in the history of MIT, that is not correct. > **[John G. Trump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Trump)** > > John George Trump (August 21, 1907 – February 21, 1985) was an American electrical engineer, inventor, and physicist. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1936 to 1985, he was a recipient of the National Medal of Science and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Trump was noted for developing rotational radiation therapy. Together with Robert J. Van de Graaff, he developed one of the first million-volt X-ray generators. He was the uncle of Trump was bo... ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3339 "2024-11-03T17:06:15Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > “So many degrees, he didn’t know what the hell to do with them all” apparently means “three degrees” (BS, MS, DSc). He’s projecting (again). ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3340 "2024-11-03T17:38:18Z")
The more disturbing thing about his reference to his uncle the MIT professor is how it reveals, yet again, Trump’s completely bigoted view of the world, in which some people are born genetically superior to others, and in which character traits are immutable. Between wanting to return to tariffs for revenue, a spoils system for filling government jobs, and now this Social Darwinism, it is truly striking how much Trump has a 19th century mindset (As an aside, I think the concept of Eugenics was particularly absurd, when you had somebody like Teddy Roosevelt promoting a belief in a racial hierarchy: Teddy, who was blind as a bat, afflicted with asthma as a kid, and had a brother who drank himself to death. But, yes, _go on_ about your inherent genetic superiority). ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3341 "2024-11-03T17:50:44Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I mean, the sheer number of times he’s told a women she’s beautiful… There’s also the sheer number of times Trump has said that he can’t say what he just said. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3342 "2024-11-03T17:53:58Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > The more disturbing thing about his reference to his uncle the MIT professor is how it reveals, yet again, Trump’s completely bigoted view of the world, in which some people are born genetically superior to others, and in which character traits are immutable. Not even to mention how delusional it is for someone to repeatedly claim, “I am a scientific expert because **my uncle** accomplished X, Y, and Z.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3343 "2024-11-03T18:32:35Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > @DrDeth: for the record, and ref your earlier quote of me … > > I don’t now believe that the SCOTUS is simply a traditional R or trump / MAGA rubberstamp. I do believe some of them lean sympathetic that way. And I also think that plenty of election-related cases will need to be heard, appealed, _cert_ed, and decided by SCOTUS in a big hurry in the next ~3 months. Which necessary haste may bring low quality decision-making based on low quality evidence. If they even get to SCOTUS. But Courts have been very reluctant to go against the will of the voters. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3344 "2024-11-03T21:16:58Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > Trump had a rally in Salem, VA……suddenly declaring that he thinks he has a chance in VA. > > But I have a suspicion that there was another reason. I’m thinking that they meant to book a venue in Winston-Salem NC and fucked up, 4 Seasons style. All the blathering about VA being the newest swing state was just cover for their incompetence. Heh. I don’t think you’d find anyone willing to bet against your theory being true. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3345 "2024-11-03T21:19:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > If they even get to SCOTUS. But Courts have been very reluctant to go against the will of the voters. The entire point of the various RW shenanigans will be to make “the will of the voters” honestly indeterminable. Then it comes down to which legal narrative is persuasive _enough_ for the court(s) wherever at each level to buy. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3346 "2024-11-03T21:25:40Z")
“Like we’re on the four yard line not the five yard line. All we have to do is carry the ball over that… thing” > “During the debates she said your debates don’t really draw, and everybody leaves early. My debates never have an empty seat” > “The Amish community. Where are they? They’re at church” > > > Acyn @Acyn “[Polls showing me losing] is called suppression. They suppress. And it actually should be illegal.” > “I’m a pretty smart guy. I have genetics” > “They are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing. Look at what’s going on. Look at what’s going on in your state. Every day they’re talking about extending hours” > "[Harris did] “the worst job ever on hurricane salvage and removal” > “Those licenses should be bid out” > ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3347 "2024-11-03T21:39:48Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > "[Harris did] “the worst job ever on hurricane salvage and removal” Clearly she should have thrown paper towel rolls at them. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3348 "2024-11-03T21:43:10Z")
“Witch hunt!” ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3349 "2024-11-03T21:46:01Z")
Trump literally doesn’t know what state he’s in right now. > ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3350 "2024-11-03T21:51:12Z")
> [@Chad\_Sudan](#): > > Not even to mention how delusional it is for someone to repeatedly claim, “I am a scientific expert because **my uncle** accomplished X, Y, and Z.” Well, it’s not like Trump has ever slapped his name on something or claimed credit for things he didn’t create or achieve or even have anything to do with. In this case, he does have the same name as his uncle. I’m waiting for Trump to claim he knows more about physics than anyone except his uncle and then maybe even more than him. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3351 "2024-11-03T21:52:13Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [https://x.com/Acyn/status/1853116368486580294](https://x.com/Acyn/status/1853116368486580294) > “Fast race horses produce race horses” For those trying to make the case that Trump is perfectly fine mentally (such as John McWhorter, who produced the theory that Trump is simply bored, in a NYT piece discussed in the 3270s, above)----this is the kind of thing that provides extremely strong evidence that Trump is NOT okay mentally. If you are trying to say that ‘genetics’ is a thing that makes you The Best Candidate and someone people should vote for, then you say that fast race horses produce fast race horses. Not that they ‘produce race horses.’ Because: yeah, horses produce horses, not termites. But Trump’s brain can’t come up with clear communication. It just can’t. He’s got ideas floating around up there but he can’t make them come out in, you know, language. I know it makes virtually no difference at this point. His fans would vote for him if his brain fell completely out of his ears. And the vaunted “low-information voters” aren’t going to know about Trump’s inability to communicate clearly because they aren’t willing to give five seconds of their attention to these matters. Still. ---
**Author:** ![bobsmom101](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobsmom101/32/2867_2.png) [@bobsmom101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobsmom101)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3352 "2024-11-03T22:20:20Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > they know that if they help him become a dictator they’ll be making themselves obsolete. If it comes down to it, they’ll choose to preserve their own power over enabling him. Lord knows I’ve gone slightly crazy with this election, but IMO “Trump as dictator” is kind of irrelevant. The Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, Project 2025, etc **know** that Trump is a blithering idiot. His _only_ utility to them is to get elected because he commands a slavish militant mob. If he is elected, I predict he’ll be forced to resign within 6 months, and Vance, who is better organized and more cunning, will step in (a la Joe & Kamala’s tag team) with the full support of the fascists, including SCOTUS. I realize how paranoid this sounds. I fervently hope the US doesn’t have to test this speculation. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2024, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/3353 "2024-11-03T22:24:07Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > If you are trying to say that ‘genetics’ is a thing that makes you Only someone with dementia would bring up genetics considering Fred Trump had dementia. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589.md?page=165) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589.md?page=167)