RNC was 'searing reminder' that Trump has 'obvious mental deficits': former Republican

19 July 2024

Usually, the quadrennial nominating conventions are opportunities for both major political parties to unite their base around their respective nominee ahead of the general election. But former President Donald Trump's speech at the Republican National Convention has one former Republican sounding the alarm about what he believes are significant cognitive issues plaguing the ex-president.

In his latest essay for the Atlantic, U.S. Naval War College professor emeritus Tom Nichols — who was a Republican until 2016 — voiced his concerns about the mental fortitude of the 45th president of the United States. He opined that Trump's rambling, 93-minute speech on Thursday night demonstrated what he believes is evidence of rapid, ongoing mental decline.

"[T]he Republican National Convention was a searing reminder that Trump is a vengeful autocrat with obvious mental deficits who has surrounded himself with a crew of vicious goons," Nichols wrote.

Nichols has previously written that he he's been politically active since the Carter administration, and had even once worked in politics as an aide to an unnamed "senior Republican U.S. senator." On Friday, he wrote that he watched Trump's nomination speech with "genuine curiosity" to see if the former president's tone had changed since a would-be assassin nearly shot him to death on Saturday.

"No chance," Nichols wrote. "[A]lthough Trump and his people have emphasized Trump’s defiance in the moment after he was hurt, his blow-by-blow account of the incident came across to me as creepy and solipsistic rather than brave."

The ex-Republican went on to contrast how Trump talked about the unsuccessful assassination attempt with former President Ronald Reagan, who was also nearly killed in 1981 by gunman John Hinckley Jr. He observed that Trump "droned on about how much the human ear can bleed while the screens behind him showed huge pictures of blood on his face" during the first part of his speech. By contrast, he argued that Reagan was gracious in the days following his near-death experience and chose to not dwell excessively on the shooting.

"Reagan was on the Hill to talk about the economy, but he started by thanking the country for its prayers and good wishes, noting a cute letter he got from a child while he was in the hospital, and paying tribute to the people injured alongside him," Nichols recalled. "This digression took all of four paragraphs, a matter of a few minutes. 'Now, let’s talk about getting spending and inflation under control and cutting your tax rates,' he then said."

Despite Trump having a teleprompter feeding him a carefully scripted speech, Nichols found that the former president couldn't help himself from improvising and riffing, noting that those moments are always "when the real Trump comes out, in all his whiny and aggrieved glory."

"I do not have the space (or the endurance) to relive those moments with you, but they were the ramblings of a man who has serious psychological problems. All of it was on display last night: rage, paranoia, pettiness, desolating selfishness," he wrote.

Nichols mentioned that while it was true that President Joe Biden was "old" and "having trouble communicating" and "might be out of the race by next week," it shouldn't go unnoticed that his rival is "mentally and emotionally unwell."

"The real tragedy is that, in a serious country, Biden might step down without incident, and a normal race would continue, because decent people would have banished Trump from the public square long ago," he concluded.

Click here to read Nichols' essay in full (subscription required).

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