Desperation, delusion, and dementia, by Hal Brown, MSW

Apr 12, 2024

This is how X poster The Shallow State (here) described what Trump said in his speech about his legal problems:

Wow. Just saw a video of Trump from a few hours ago. His right hand was gesticulating, his left arm clutched the podium, his energy was off, and he glitched – several times (Letitia Jones) – without catching and correcting his gaffes. It was a veritable showcase of the three “D’s” – desperation, delusion, and dementia.
See video on X here

This is how RawStory covered his speech and the reaction to it:

‘Gibberish’: Trump’s rant about ‘Letitia Jones’ causes ‘mental decline’ uproar.

The words “mental decline” in the title seems to me to be a euphemism for dementia.

The article begins:

Former President Donald Trump gave a furious speech about his legal problems in New York, in which he seemed to be confused on many issues, like calling New York Attorney General Letitia James “Letitia Jones,” and mixing her up with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting his hush money case next week — while claiming President Joe Biden had something to do with all of it.

“They put him into the state of New York, and then into the D.A.’s office to run the case,” said Trump. “This is being run by Biden. They put a man into the state, Letitia Jones, ‘Peekaboo,’ I call her, Peekaboo Jones, Peekaboo — they put a man into that one to, Letitia. They put a man into that one to run it, and he went into the D.A.’s office.

Following the above introduction, the article goes on to quote social media reaction including the comment by The Shallow State which prompted me to write today’s blog. The Lincoln Project merely posted “It’s bad. His mental decline is getting worse by the day” but didn’t highlight Trump being both delusional and having dementia.

It will cause anxiety if it flters up through his denial into his consciosus awareness that he actually faces being convicted of a felony in the hush money case and may go to jail.

It won’t be as bad as this:

He’d probably have to be held in a special building like this:

*Above: Secret Service car and officer in front of Trump’s prison unit.*

As a first offender he could end up under house arrest where he’d end up wandering around Mar-a-Lago in the wee hours muttering to himself in a state of dementia wearing an ankle braclet.

To the extent that this manages to cross Trump’s mind you can see why he is feeling desperate and ranting about it. He’s been an inveterate vicious ranter who has thrown around juvenile, and sometimes racist insults like calling Leticia James “Peekaboo”, but until fairly recently these rants have been coherent.

What needs to break through the wall where where it has been hidden from his supporters is the truth of Trump’s dementia.

*Someone may only see the elephant’s leg but not realize how big the elephant is.*

This has been hidden from his supporters (I wrote about this here) . I doubt he has a delusional psychosis. I think he lies to himself but much of this is related to his personality disorder and is ego-protective denial which protects him from experiencing anxiety.

I do see strong evidence that he is moving from early to middle stage dementia. Unfortunately dementia isn’t treatable and always worsens. As Trump’s legal predicament puts more pressure on him and causes anxiety we will probably see more examples indicative of his having dementia. His anxiety and anger will make it ever more difficult for his to express himself rationally so we will see him do things like calling Leticia James Leticia Jones.

People who have been ingoring this have to understand that what comes out of Trump’s mouth shows us what is going on in his brain.