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Trump and Dementia
August 16, 2025
Dementia is a devastating condition that takes away memory, judgment, and even personality. Families who have dealt with it know how it starts small, with things like forgetting names, repeating the same story, or losing track of the day. Then it gets worse. People forget where they are, say things that don’t make sense, get angry or paranoid, and eventually cannot live on their own. It is one of the hardest things to watch happen to someone you love.
I am not a doctor, but I do not need to be one to see how many of these same symptoms are showing up in Donald Trump. When most people show these warning signs, they get help or step back from responsibility. Trump is still running the country, and the results are on full display.
Let’s start with memory. Trump constantly mixes up names and events. He has said more than once that he beat Barack Obama in 2016, even though he actually ran against Hillary Clinton. He confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley. He has told the same stories at rallies over and over, sometimes repeating them twice in the same speech. Anyone who has sat with an older relative who repeats the same story knows how familiar this feels. The only difference is that this older relative is holding the nuclear codes.
Next is communication. Dementia often shows up in the way people lose track of what they are saying. If you have listened to Trump’s speeches lately, you know what this looks like. He starts talking about one subject, like tariffs, then jumps into windmills causing cancer, swings back to bragging about his looks in college, and ends up talking about crowd sizes that he never actually had. His speeches are not straight lines; they are circles, and the crowd has to hang on to figure out where he is going. Some call it “authentic,” but most call it confusion.
Judgment and reasoning are another problem. Dementia takes away a person’s ability to think clearly about cause and effect. Trump has said he could declassify government documents just by thinking about it. He once suggested disinfectant might work as a treatment for COVID. These are not just odd ideas; they show a total breakdown in logic. It is the kind of thinking that would get most people laughed out of a classroom, but when it comes from a president, it becomes dangerous.
Another sign of his decline shows up in how he treats friends and enemies. People with dementia often get confused about who is safe and who is a threat, and Trump seems to do exactly that on the world stage. He insults the UK, Germany, France, even Canada and other countries that have stood by the United States for generations. At the same time, he praises leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, men who rule with fear and violence. He talks about getting “love letters” from North Korea’s dictator, while he trashes NATO, the very alliance that has kept us safe since World War II. Even worse, when Russia invaded Ukraine, he openly sided with Putin instead of supporting President Zelensky, a democratically elected leader trying to defend his country. He still does. It is like watching someone push away their family while cozying up to the stranger who wants to rob them. This is not strategy, no matter what his defenders say. It is confusion, plain and simple, and it makes the country weaker every time he opens his mouth.
Mood swings and personality changes are also common with dementia. Trump has always been quick to anger, but lately his rage and paranoia seem to define him. He attacks judges, prosecutors, journalists, and even members of his own staff. He blames shadowy plots for his problems. And when he is not angry, he is sulking about how unfair life is to him. Dementia often strips away empathy, and in Trump’s case, there does not seem to be any left.
Disorientation is another symptom that is hard to miss. People with dementia often lose track of time and place. Trump has asked out loud at rallies, “Where am I?” He mixes up timelines, telling stories that do not line up with reality. One day he is the victim of the biggest “witch hunt” in history, the next day he is the hero of imaginary battles. He rewrites history as if no one will notice. Remember him talking about Washington’s army during the Revolutionary War taking the airports? When this happens in a private home, families shake their heads and try to keep their loved one calm. When it happens in the White House, the entire country feels the impact.
Trump also has a habit of accusing others of the very things he is doing. He yells about election interference while he is the one pressuring officials to “find votes.” He calls other people corrupt while he is drowning in indictments. He warns that democracy is in danger while he is the one attacking it. It is like yelling at a mirror because you do not like what you see.
And then there are the endless loops. People with dementia often fall into repeating the same themes over and over. Trump’s loops are all about his grudges. He says the election was stolen, the media is unfair, the courts are rigged, and everyone is out to get him. That is his whole world now. He cannot move on, he cannot open up to new ideas, and he cannot stop himself from going back to the same complaints every single time he speaks.
This would be sad if it were just a man sitting at home on his porch, but it is not. It is the president of the United States. A private citizen showing these symptoms would be told to see a doctor and to let someone else make the big decisions. Instead, our country is being led by someone whose behavior matches the signs of decline more and more each day.
Some people laugh it off, treating it like an old man yelling at the clouds. And yes, there is something darkly funny about a president ranting about toilets not flushing strongly enough. But the laughter fades when you realize the cost. Dementia in a family is painful. Dementia in the Oval Office is a national crisis. The difference is scale. When Trump forgets, when he repeats, when he lashes out, the consequences do not stay in his own home. They land on all of us.
That is the truth we are living right now. The confusion, the paranoia, the endless loops of grievance, they are not just his private struggles. They are national policy. Whether you call it dementia, decline, or simply Trump being Trump, the result is the same. We are being governed by a man who is drifting further and further away from reality, and he is dragging the country with him.
