Is Donald Trump okay?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

It is irresponsible to obsess over President Biden’s tendency to mangle a couple of words in a speech while Donald Trump is out there sounding detached from reality. Biden, who is old, at least makes sense. Trump, who also is old, rants like someone you’d cross the street to avoid.

We in the media have failed by becoming inured to Trump’s verbal incontinence — not just the rapid-fire lies and revenge-seeking threats, but also the frightening glimpses into a mind that is, evidently, unwell. In 2016, Trump said outrageous things at his campaign rallies to be entertaining. In 2024, his tangents raise serious questions about his mental fitness.

His rally on Sunday in Las Vegas offered a grim smorgasbord of examples, but the obvious standout (and not in a good way) is the story he told about being aboard a hypothetical electric-powered boat. He posits that the battery would be so heavy that it would cause the craft to sink, and he relates his purported conversation with a knowledgeable mariner about this scenario. Bear with me, but it’s worth reading the passage in full:

“I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight, and you’re in the boat, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery’s now underwater, and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’

https://wapo.st/3XnB4qJ

[Skittles]

1. he has NEVER been OK

now he's just WORSE THAN EVER

[lapfog_1]

2. if you have to ask this question

it is time to get an evaluation of your own judgement skills.

[littlemissmartypants]

7. This times a gazillion. It's a huge disappointment and should be

embarrassing for those people that refuse to open their eyes and actually THINK!

What part of psychopath don't they understand?

[Silent Type]

3. Boat story is right up there with Shooting bleach into our veins and shining light up our rear

to cure Covid. If he were a decent human or comedian, some of that would be really funny. But he could be Prez, that ain’t funny.

[dweller]

4. I certainly hope not

Make him go away



✌🏻

[Hassler]

5. Don the Con must think He's facing the death penalty

And is letting Judge Merchand know which he prefers.

[GreenWave]

11. In some countries that would have happened on Jan. 7th,

[chouchou]

6. For most people on this earth, I would feel some empathy for someone who is starting to fall apart.

For Trump, it's a celebration.

[jmowreader]

8. What would happen if the boat sank from its weight?

Weighs 100,000 long tons. Floats fine.

[Farmer-Rick]

13. Does he think weight is the only issue

For a sinking boat? A regular battery won't sink a boat unless it's been overloaded or has a hull fracture.

His imaginary story makes no sense and who exactly is he telling this nonsense to?

I thought he was telling it to the doctor who was giving him a cognitive test. No one ever asked that question? Implies the person he's talking to has heard this situation before, maybe not the question but the situation before.

The weirder story he reads aloud to the crowd is that snake and woman story. It's actually lyrics of a song, but he reads it out loud like a bedtime story.

When was the last time Biden read out loud a bedtime story? Or even a bizzaro nonsensical sinking boat story?

I'm voting for the guy who doesn't have dementia.

[Mad_Machine76]

22. And it has electricity!

[jmowreader]

24. It has two whole power plants!

[PatrickforB]

9. And yet, Trump holds around 50 million Americans, give or take, in thrall.

Why?

I won't go on a big long screed about how corporate corruption has literally been baked into our system for the last 108 years, and has accelerated alarmingly since Powell's 1971 manifesto (An Attack on American Free Enterprise) which he wrote at the request of the US Chamber of Commerce. I will not belabor how this plan for the oligarchic takeover of the republic has come near to fruition.

Do you, I wonder, subscribe to a belief in deeper human trends, collective trends? For example, we can take racism (oh, I know we'd all rather leave it, if you'll pardon the play on words), and see that it is an outlook that is energized by the power of strong emotion and thought in hundreds of millions around the world. Or the greed of Wall Street, the envy that is generated for the sake of profits by Madison Avenue. We can look at the weapons industry, the warrior caste, and we see that this is based in pride and wrath. It is very sophisticated really. Money has changed hands, and we are propagandized by well-paid individual talk show hosts and pundits to resist gun control, and yet encourage war (and massive arms sales) by isolationism. We see the wreckers as well - Trump, Bannon, Miller, Putin, Kim Jung Un, Viktor Orban, the Italian PM, who is a member of Mussolini's party. Nationalism is quite powerful and it is rising again with the passing of the WWII generation.

Sometimes I wonder if our so-called sociological trends aren't just a little deeper, a little more spiritual.

It amazes one, does it not, how these people are so loyal they will come out in deadly heat to see Trump and hear him tell them he doesn't care at all about them, just what they can do for him (vote) and still cheer him?

How is it, we wonder, how the bronze bull-idol of Wall Street and the greed of oligarchs has us in such a stranglehold?

In that sense Yo_Mama, the media is partly to blame. The fiduciary responsibility of your senior editors, producers, and directors, not to mention higher corporate officers is ONLY to generate profits for shareholders, nothing about truth in news reporting. And you know, Rachel, Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Alex Wagner, Nicole Wallace - they work for a company owned by Comcast. The only thing that keeps their left-leaning news on MSNBC is their ratings. And, of course, they are opposed by Hannity and his ilk, who also have high ratings. Both groups keep those shareholder profits rolling in. They polarize us in order to manufacture money for the oligarchs.

I did not know you were in media. I am an economist, formerly a counselor.

Warm regards.

[Old Crank]

10. Wait until he finds out

About electric airplanes....

[70sEraVet]

12. Good line!

[bif]

30. Not to mention electric cars!

[twodogsbarking]

14. Lunatic. A lunatic is someone who is either clinically insane or just acting really crazy, or Trump.

[Paladin]

15. Count on the Post to ask a dumbfuck question like this. (nt)

[NJCher]

28. You do realize that

Eugene Robinson wrote this piece?

And that we complain mightily about how the media does nothing to present the case that trump is insane, yet when they do, you comment is that it's a "dumbfuck" question.

You do realize the question is rhetorical and is designed to draw the reader in, or do you?

The only excuse for such a comment is that you did not read the piece in its entirety. That's a helluva way to do discussion on a discussion board. At least do us the favor of reading the entire piece before shooting off at the hip with some completely off-base observation.

[Paladin]

32. Well by God, I guess you put ME in MY place!

That's a rhetorical statement; hope the drawing-in process wasn't too painful or time-consuming...

[NJCher]

33. --

[mountain grammy]

16. madman.

Now a warning?!! As the Post sat on an important story that exposed more of the extremism on our SC for 3+ years.

[Biglinda 52]

17. You created...

this monster Dr. MSMstein. Stop printing about him. He is mentally ill. This is all your fault and now you complain.

[JohnnyRingo]

18. I think Trump was comparing the boat to a toaster in the bathtub.

He wasn't considering the weight, but the danger of electrocution.
Trump figured he'd rather die of being consumed by a shark rather than frying to death.

I imagine he lied when he claimed to ask "an expert". He probably thinks people are unable to take a Tesla to the car wash.

[oldsoftie]

20. He's too stupid to realize he wouldnt be electrocuted by a sinking boat.

And if the boat mfg owner really did say "ya know, nobody's ever asked me that"; its because its a dumbass question

[JohnnyRingo]

21. hahaha

As long as the "expert" addressed him as "Sir" before and after each sentence.
haha

[oldsoftie]

19. He's always talked nonsense. We need to stop thinking its gonna matter to anyone.

Now, I certainly HOPE he declines to a state where only the most moronic/sycophantic idiots would still vote for him, but right now I just dont see that happening
After all, he's a VERY smart man!

[mahina]

34. Affiliated with MIT, Very smart,

[oldsoftie]

36. Very few people can educate themselves thru osmosis. nt

[LW1977]

23. Don't care about him.

Had he never came down that escalator that June day in 2015, America would be better.

[twodogsbarking]

25. He seems like himself.

[cilla4progress]

26. Rhetorical

question.

Answer is obvious.

Also - mass psychosis.

[twodogsbarking]

27. Well stated. The headline makes me laugh harder every time I see it. I can't look any more.

[NJCher]

29. been reading the comments at Washington Post

Here's a good one:

The thing I find most amazing in Trump’s insane ramblings is that he actually talked of “jumping” a shark. Someone needs to tell him he already has.

------------------

And likewise: do people understand what's behind the headline "Is Donald Trump Okay?"

[brewens]

31. He makes Hank Kimball sound like JFK.

[Ford_Prefect]

35. He's in serious mental and functional decline. Ask a Gerontologist about it. This is way past his Maniac in Office act.

People mistake his erratic mood swings and confusion as "Trump normal" amped up. He's left the building in more ways than one.

[lees1975]

37. He's not.

He's a mental basket case.

So I have to wonder about the sanity, intelligence, and mental capabilities of people who are watching this and still want to vote him in as President. Talk about idiots.

[Susan Calvin]

38. Took them long enough. nt