# 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:** 91
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2024, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1834 "2024-08-30T05:21:24Z")
Wow. I’ve seen some nutty clips lately but this one is really something else. I think the channel threw up the ads near the end as a distraction because even they realized he sounded crazy. > ---
**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:** [August 30, 2024, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1835 "2024-08-30T09:20:35Z")
Potterville? Isn’t that the sleazy right-wing dystopia that happens because George Bailey was never born in _It’s A Wonderful Life_? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2024, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1836 "2024-08-30T11:03:01Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Confused or not, he’s just so whiny. Why his followers think that he’s manly and masculine is beyond me. I think it’s because they see themselves in him; insecure men tend to _be_ whiny and obsessed with “strong men”. What I’ve heard called “fragile masculinity”. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2024, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1837 "2024-08-30T11:26:20Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Sometimes: > > [Trump met with boos after revealing he received Covid-19 booster](https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/donald-trump-booster-shot-boos/index.html) That was him trying to turn a runaway train. If he’d actually tried to lead on the issue the anti-vax/anti-mask contingent would have been much smaller and ignorable. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2024, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1838 "2024-08-30T11:29:57Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > If he’d actually tried to lead on the issue the anti-vax/anti-mask contingent would have been much smaller and ignorable. Agreed. And I’ve maintained for four years if he’d actually tried to lead on the issue he would have been re-elected relatively easily. ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2024, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1839 "2024-08-30T11:33:50Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Agreed. And I’ve maintained for four years if he’d actually tried to lead on the issue he would have been re-elected relatively easily I always said he should have been marketing and selling red MAGA masks from the beginning. He would have made a killing and his pestilent followers followers wouldn’t have spread the virus so much. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2024, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1840 "2024-08-30T11:44:21Z")
Just noticed the accordian. ---
**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:** [August 30, 2024, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1841 "2024-08-30T22:29:01Z")
“Kamala Harris. Do you ever notice nobody knows what her last name is?” > “I think she [Harris] is going to soon apply for. Give me an application for joining Maga. She’s going to be wearing a Maga cap.” > ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2024, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1842 "2024-08-30T23:58:55Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [x.com](https://x.com/Acyn/status/1829631298534773032) Does anyone else actually see these clips except for a small number of Newsmax MAGA followers and **Smapti**? Newsmax has 170,000 subscribers. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1843 "2024-08-31T00:02:16Z")
And they wouldn’t be opposing every other vaccine now. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1844 "2024-08-31T12:02:05Z")
Based on what I see over at Breitbart, the lefties will sometimes point them out and the MAGAs will usually respond with something like “You to stoopid too undertstand trump” They really are impenetrable. I saw an exchange regarding Arlington where they basically said all the REAL troops are MAGA, so anyone offended is an anti-American, commie, not a real soldier, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1845 "2024-08-31T15:01:25Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > insecure men tend to _be_ whiny and obsessed with “strong men”. Hey, I’m not whiny or obsessed with “strong men”. Oh, “tend”. > [@SuntanLotion](#): > > Just noticed the accordian. What’s that gesture he’s doing at the beginning? A 1 finger and thumb held 3 inches apart, sliding up and down. Can’t be stroking _himself_. From Jesse Lee at X > [@](#): > > Absolute incoherence, can’t keep track of a thought from one second to the next, > [@OldOlds](#): > > Based on what I see over at Breitbart, the lefties will sometimes point them out and the MAGAs will usually respond with something like “You to stoopid too undertstand trump” To be fair, there is a grain of truth there. That post wasn’t complete incoherence. It was a free association flow of a man who doesn’t execute a complete statement, but by habit interrupts himself with an aside or two. He lacks the discipline to make a direct statement because he gets caught up in the instant gratification of bragging and whining. It’s just that he interrupted himself with a whine and then interrupted the whine with a brag and another whine, and then interrupted that to use some vignette about Lincoln that’s technically a stealth brag but also a whine. A an analogy, he’s like a poster that opens a lot of code tags but forgets to close them. He doesn’t have the mental discipline to complete a statement without making an aside, or to limit the aside and return to his original point. He’s in constant free-flow of whatever is in his mind. I think most people can relate to the experience of going online to look up something and ending up on a wild meander through the web, winding up on some completely unrelated point and struggling to remember why you were looking that up or how you even got there. That’s Trump making a speech. So his base is used to him doing that, though it does sound like he’s distracting himself even more, going on more tangents that he used to. That’s not to say there aren’t points that he falls into covfefe and can’t form words, let alone thoughts. But the bulk of his speeching is not about disciplined statements, it’s about satisfying his immediate thought commentary. It’s all about Trump’s emotional roller coaster ride. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1846 "2024-08-31T15:58:35Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > He doesn’t have the mental discipline to complete a statement without making an aside, or to limit the aside and return to his original point. He’s in constant free-flow of whatever is in his mind. Every Trump rally is a MAGA slam poetry jam. It’s just that us normies don’t get it because of our liberal tears. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1847 "2024-08-31T16:08:15Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > But the bulk of his speeching is not about disciplined statements, it’s about satisfying his immediate thought commentary. This point is very important for those who are not his audience to recognize. He is communicating to his crowd just fine. It really is an example of the medium is the message. He isn’t so much communicating cognitively as he is communicating something that resonates with his listeners in their guts emotionally. I don’t understand that hidden language myself but we deny that it is there, dismiss it as mere confusion, at our own perils. The possible saving grace is only that the audience that does understand it is fairly exclusively the group already dedicated to him. If he ever had the ability to also speak in ways that communicated actual coherent ideas he has it much less so now. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1848 "2024-08-31T20:27:41Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > He isn’t so much communicating cognitively as he is communicating something that resonates with his listeners in their guts emotionally. > > I don’t understand that hidden language myself but we deny that it is there, dismiss it as mere confusion, at our own perils. It’s very much as I’ve been preaching. Trump is justifying and celebrating the people for the things they feel like they have been criticized and rejected over. Redneck, uneducated, evangelical, white, rural, gun-owning, anti-woke, anti - abortion - it’s grievance based and persecution complex driven. When he complains about the liberals coming after him, he states and they feel that the liberals are coming for them too. "I’m not rich, why should I pay more taxes to pay lazy people who don’t want to work? " “We don’t need those illegal Mexicans coming here to take our jobs and change our society.” “Blacks, Asians, Mexicans, Hispanics all get to celebrate their heritage but not Whites. It’s so unfair.” “Southern culture is under attack! They want to hide our Southern Heritage. It’s not racist to have pride in our ancestors that fought for independence and State’s rights.” “Christianity is under attack. No prayer in school, no Merry Christmas, yet they want to normalize perversion.” Trump promising to Make America Great Again told them what they wanted to hear about how they want their power back. So when the justice system comes after Trump, he is able to sell it that the liberals are trying to silence their champion, their mouthpiece, their leader. And therefore, silence them and their concerns. When he starts taking, he interrupts his own train of thought to hit a grievance, and when he gets a positive crowd reaction, he follows that response. That sparks another thought that he can stir another response, so he keeps riffing. That’s why he’s stuck on his greatest hits about Biden and Obama and even Clinton. Those all resonated at one time, so he tried to recapture those wins with the crowd. Do they work now? See how his audiences react. That’s also why he’s so nasty. People often enjoy hearing their enemies derided and mocked. Trump knows that, and it’s usually easy to find some way to mock his opponents in a way that his followers laugh at, degrading them to make them less appealing. Because negative branding works. He’s just petty enough and shameless enough that he doesn’t care about decorum, he only wants to win, and mocking his opponents is also fun for him. That’s why “weird” is so great. It’s got the same power to make the recipient less appealing in a visceral, emotional way. It says they aren’t deserving of blanket, generic respect. It says, “You don’t want to be like that, do you?” ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1849 "2024-08-31T20:33:37Z")
There is honestly a rhythm and a **[confidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scam)** to many of his unscripted rants. And when he speaks, his servants are profoundly enthralled, and tend to hear only what he wants them to hear (you’re in peril … everything you love is under attack … big, scary minorities … only I can help you … need cash … _badly_). And in _writing_ – as @Smapti so graciously facilitates here … well … I presume you see where this is going. Trump doesn’t empty the seats at the local library to gather audiences for his rallies is all I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1850 "2024-08-31T20:51:57Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Does anyone else actually see these clips except for a small number of Newsmax MAGA followers and **Smapti**? I just read what **Smapti** quotes, never watch the videos, but I think public recognition for **Smapti** ’s service is overdue. That is taking one for the team! I can’t imagine what it must be like to parse all that tanTrump shit! > [@Irishman](#): > > Redneck, uneducated, evangelical, white, rural, gun-owning, anti-woke, anti - abortion - it’s grievance based and persecution complex driven. It’s nastiness all the way down. And it works for some. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1851 "2024-08-31T21:19:02Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > And when he speaks, his servants are profoundly enthralled, and tend to hear only what he wants them to hear (you’re in peril … everything you love is under attack … big, scary minorities … only I can help you … need cash … _badly_). Way back in 2016, one of the things I think helped Trump quite a bit was not sounding like a typical politician. Instead of giving polished rehearsed answers, Trump answered off the cuff and came across as being genuine. I still thought he was grossly unqualified to be president, but I could see how his style was attractive to many people. I asked my MAGA mother if she had actually sat down and listened to one of Trump’s speeches. She reads the transcripts but doesn’t listen to him talk. I asked her to listen to him but I don’t know if she’s ever taken me up on that. We avoid talking politics and when she brings up MAGA baloney I’m not shy about telling her it’s baloney. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1852 "2024-08-31T21:27:17Z")
_The Atlantic_’s take on his ramblings (gift link valid for two weeks): > **[Six Degrees of Trump and Bacon](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/08/trump-bacon-wind-speech-gibberish/679667/?gift=cU4WmXraWG3WoSDDx6g_kX5JhKS0asb0F-PK5ZWqBFw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share)** > > Following the former president’s thought process can be a challenge. It looks like everybody knows that he just generates hot air, and it still works for too many. ---
**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:** [August 31, 2024, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589/1853 "2024-08-31T22:33:39Z")
“You know, I do the weave. You know the weave? I weave stories together. Friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say it’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen” > [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589.md?page=90) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-confused/996589.md?page=92)