Trump is sounding like the 'weird creep at the nursing home': analysis

06 March 2024

In right-wing media outlets, likely 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is often portrayed as an engaging, lively speaker — while President Joe Biden's gaffes are reported in elaborate detail.

Typically, those outlets ignore or downplay Trump's many gaffes — for example, confusing conservative former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley with ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) more than once in a recent speech.

But Salon's Amanda Marcotte forcefully calls out right-wing media and the Republican Party in an article published on March 6, emphasizing that Trump has been increasingly incoherent and "rambling" son the campaign trail.

"Despite the best efforts of the Beltway press to present him as a spry young man next to 81-year-old Joe Biden," the liberal journalist explains, "it's getting harder by the day to ignore that 77-year-old Donald Trump is decompensating rapidly. He wasn't all that healthy or coherent to begin with, but lately, watching him speak has the feel of getting cornered by the weird creep at the nursing home."

During one of his recent speeches, Marcotte notes, Trump "forgot that Barack Obama hasn't been president in nearly eight years."

"Most people who hear Trump speak these days get uncomfortable 'Grandpa needs a nap, but I worry he's going to bite me' vibes," Marcotte observes. "But that doesn't seem to be registering at all with most Republican voters, at least not the ones who show up at his rallies…. One commonly held theory is that Trump has always been a moron, creating an expectation of cognitive function so low that it's hard to notice he's failing to meet it."

Marcotte adds, "But even looking back at his dumbest White House moment — perhaps the suggestion that injecting bleach was a COVID-19 treatment — he didn't sound quite so out of it. His train of thought was idiotic, but it wasn't derailing into 'ding boom' or baby talk."

The Philadelphia-based journalist emphasizes, however, that the MAGA movement and right-wing media are so insular that they fail to realize how "obvious" Trump's "cognitive decline" is.

"Many more voters are likely to tune in closer to Election Day, and many will be shocked by seeing what more politically conscious folks have seen over the last couple of years: A guy who didn't have a lot of mental resources to begin with shedding brain cells by the minute," Marcotte argues. "There are lots of good reasons to vote against Trump, with his fascist impulses at the top of the list. But for those voters who are concerned about the candidates' ages, Donald Trump's obvious cognitive decline should matter."

Amanda Marcotte's full Salon article is available at this link.

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