I was trying to formulate a proper response to that post when you did it pretty well. No matter who the candidate is I don’t want doctors who have never met them make medical diagnoses. I’m sure the right had found doctors to say the same about Biden.
On the other hand, you don’t need to be a meteorologist to tell if it’s raining outside.
Hardly a similar comparison. There are thousands of hours of video of trump walking, talking, and opining for all the world to see. Not to mention the thousands of people who have seen him in person exposing his confusion and ignorance. One thing you can say for trump is that he is consistent in his speech and behavior. WYSIWYG. A personal examination of him is not going to reveal anyone different from the one he has been in person year after year.
Also, with so much video footage over so many years, it’s not hard to compare past with present and perceive mental deterioration.
But don’t you dare do that about someone else with video footage over many years.
There’s no doubt he’s always been intellectually incurious and not very bright and has gotten worse, especially recently. There’s even good reason for people to come to the conclusion he may be demented. I personally think it may even be likely, but I’m no medical professional nor have I examined him personally.
But for a medical professional to offer that same opinion up without appropriate examination or study in a forum to be widely seen or read is not a good thing. If we’re to have something resembling a decent, civilized society, we need our professionals to behave…well, professionally, so that we can give their words appropriate weight.
There’s always been a streak of anti-intellectualism in this country, and it’s gotten worse over the last several years. No matter how well-intentioned, we should not ourselves contribute to that trend.
Although I will say, if he’s somehow putting on an act to look even more deranged and unhealthy, oh man, is he knocking it out of the park!
I keep remembering how unhealthy and deranged I thought he was in 2020, but every time I look back at videos of him from that time, I’m amazed at how much better he looked then, than today.
Why on earth would somebody want to do that? My commiserations.
Sometime you have to Google shit to prove a point.
That’s the hard way to do it, as I wrote: my commiserations. Sounds like taking one for the team, hard job.
Trump was not confused, it was reality’s fault for not properly conforming to Trump’s statements.
And in any event, demented or not, I don’t like him.
I honestly don’t get what anyone could see in a person examination of him that isn’t blatantly obvious in every public appearance that he makes.
I agree. He’s a few clicks down from the guy in filthy clothes and a tinfoil hat, standing on the corner shrieking about aliens. Not much of a challenge to make a broad diagnosis.
Genuinely, I don’t care what the formal diagnosis is.
I can watch both Trump and Biden for 5 minutes and know which one I want to run the country.
Trump has clearly explained that when he refers to Biden as Obama he’s doing it on purpose. When he referred to Nikki Haley as the one who failed to prevent the incident on January 6th instead of Nancy Pelosi he was doing it deliberately because he doesn’t think much of either one of them. And when he referred to Melania as Mercedes he was looking at one of his supporters and his wife whose name is Mercedes but the liberal media doesn’t want you to know this. Trump has repeatedly explained to us that these aren’t gaffs on his part, and given how many cognative tests he’s passed combined with the respect for a statesman of his caliber, I don’t see why we would doubt him.
Your forgot the sarcasm tag. I hope.
“Cognitive.”
It’s not like it’s an either/or situation.
I know which I wouldn’t mind running the country and which one I think shouldn’t even be put in charge of putting toys away at naptime.
But it’s also true that part of the reason we’re in this jam and have suffered through several series of mishaps is that people think they can safely ignore professional expertise, safely make snap judgments on their own, and just generally treat things like ethics and expertise and evidence with contempt.
We should be able to have all of those things - somebody competent to lead the country AND the expectation that professionals behave ethically AND the concept that snap judgments on dementia via watching video clips is harmful to a lot of people who have or know somebody with dementia and have to deal with it
If simply winning at all costs is sufficient, we’re just setting ourselves up for the same fight again and again and again while making our society meaner and poorer all the while
Damn it! That wasn’t on the test.
To be clear, the MiniMental Status Exam requires knowing some advanced material, including:
- date, month, year, season and day of the week
- geographic location, city, region, country, floor
- being able to repeat, then recall 3 objects
- counting backwards from 100 by sevens
- being able to follow simple written instructions
- being able to draw a clock
- being able to draw intersecting shapes
- identifying a pen and watch; knowing their use
- and similar difficult puzzlers