Is Trump Going Senile?

Donald Trump has received some endorsements recently. Some are relatively benign, though hypocritical, like Chris Christie's. Some, like Paul LePage's, the kookie governor of Maine that everyone in the legislature hates -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- are of limited utility.

Other endorsements are completely toxic for the general public, such as the various hate groups that have been running phone banks supporting Trump's candidacy. And then there's David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

When asked if he would refuse endorsements from Duke and other white supremacist organizations, Trump acted confused, repeating himself over and over like some doddering old man:

"I don't know anything about David Duke. I don't know what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacist. I don't know. I don't know, did he endorse me, or what's going on?" he said. That prompted a back-and-forth that went, in part:

Trump: I don't know what group you're talking about. You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about. ... If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on them and certainly I would disavow them if I thought there was something wrong.

Tapper: The Ku Klux Klan?

Trump: You may have groups in there that are totally fine and it would be very unfair. So give me a list of the groups and I'll let you know.

Tapper: I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here.

Trump: Honestly, I don't know David Duke.

Trump is either confused here, or has lost his memory, or is lying. He should know exactly who David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan are:

In 2000, when he ended his presidential campaign, Trump cited Duke's participation in the Reform Party as one reason he no longer wanted the party's nomination.

"The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. [Pat] Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. [Lenora] Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep," he wrote in his statement.

I'm going to engage in some armchair neurology here. Donald Trump is 70 years old. If elected he would be the oldest man ever elected president, beating Reagan by several months.

As Timothy Egan noted, Trump has suffered from sleep deprivation for decades:

Sleep deprivation, we know, can make you cranky and temperamental, and throw off judgment. The severely sleep-deprived are more impulsive, less adaptable and prone to snappish decisions, and they have trouble listening to others. They miss out on essential REM time, which allows people to process emotions and events in their lives. Smaller things set them off.

“You know, I’m not a big sleeper,” Trump said last November. “I like three hours, four hours, I toss, I turn, I beep-de-beep, I want to find out what’s going on.”

Sleep is essential for good health. As I've written about previously, during sleep the brain cleans out toxic protein buildup. Those proteins are the same plaque tangles that cause Alzheimers. Lack of sleep can cause Alzheimers.

Now, some people are able to function with little sleep. Bill Clinton is cited as an example, and he's the same age as Trump. But comparing Bill Clinton's manner and Trump's, Clinton's mind is clearly still sharp, while Trump is quite evidently suffering from significant personality, memory and cognitive deficits.

The reason Trump sounds like your crazy old uncle, is that -- like your crazy old uncle -- he's getting senile.

When Trump is viewed in this light, everything becomes clear. He thinks he can build a wall and make Mexico pay for it because he's going senile. He is prone to bouts of bile, vulgar tempers and frenetic excitement because he's suffering from Alzheimers. He talks at a third grade level not because of a grand strategy to condescend to his poorly educated audience, but because that's all he can manage. He constantly repeats himself  because he can't remember what he just said.

He runs his presidential campaign from Twitter like some 13-year-old mean middle-school over-privileged princess, not because he's some brilliant media savant, but because mental deficits have regressed his intellect to that of a teen-aged girl.

Last year Trump released a bullshit letter from his doctor claiming that Trump was in the best shape any president ever was. It was written just like a Donald Trump press release, and was obviously penned by Trump's PR flaks. Hilariously, Trump tweeted that the letter had been written by a doctor who had been dead for five years. Trump is in such bad shape he can't even remember who his doctor is.

Clearly, Trump is in a constant state of angry befuddlement.

This suggests an entirely new avenue of attack on Trump: the rest of the Republican field should demand that he submit to a real physical and mental examination by a qualified neurologist or gerontologist, instead of Trump's fart doctor.

I'm sure Ben Carson, brain surgeon, can recommend someone as a parting gift as he drops out of the race.