A panel of cognitive experts have recently taken a new look at former President Donald Trump’s speeches and other public remarks as of late and took note of several things that appear to indicate that the ex-president and 2024 Republican presidential nominee’s cognitive acuity is on a rapid, downward spiral.
Former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden have both faced intense scrutiny and criticism surrounding their advanced ages and overall mental fitness — so much so that many believe it played a large role in Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race and open the door for his current vice president to take his place in the impending election.
Back in 2017, STAT — a publication that describes itself as “reporting from the frontiers of health and medicine” — conducted an extensive examination of Donald Trump’s speaking style, describing him as “linguistically challenged” at the time.
Now, 6 years later, STAT has conducted a follow-up analysis on the ex-president, in which multiple cognitive experts confirm that, over the years, Donald Trump has only gotten worse.
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“At STAT’s request, four experts reviewed four clips of Trump’s speeches in recent months, and compared them to speeches from 2017,” the health and medicine publication reports in their new, updated analysis. “Several noticed Trump’s 2024 speeches included more short sentences, confused word order, and repetition, alongside extended digressions such as Trump’s comments on Biden and Cary Grant, or in another speech, comments on banking abruptly giving way to Trump lamenting the cost of electric cars.”
“These could be attributed to a variety of possible causes, they said, some benign and others more worrisome,” the report goes on to read. “They include mood changes, a desire to appeal to certain audiences, natural aging, or the beginnings of a cognitive condition like Alzheimer’s disease.”
A more thorough and formal analysis was conducted by social psychologist James Pennebaker, of the University of Texas at Austin, based on complete transcripts of Donald Trump’s interviews, all the way back to 2015. Pennebaker utilized statistical software to create detailed tracking of Trump’s word use over the years and highlight the changes in the now-former president’s speaking styles.
While Pennebaker was not yet prepared to submit his findings to an academic journal, he did notice significant, undeniable changes.
“Since the end of Trump’s presidency in 2021, Pennebaker’s analysis showed a steep increase in ‘all-or-nothing thinking,’ as indicated by a roughly 60 percent increase in use of absolute terms like ‘always,’ ‘never,’ and ‘completely,'” STAT’s report reads. “This habit, Pennebaker said, can be a sign of depression, which also fits with other changes in Trump’s word choices: His dialogue now has far fewer positive words than previously, and includes more references to negative emotions, especially since his return to civilian life.”
An increase in all-or-nothing style thinking can expose changes in cognitive abilities and Pennebaker said that the sharp, drastic increases seen in Donald Trump could certainly be indicative of significant cognitive decline.
“Another person whose all-or-nothing thinking has gone up is Biden,” Pennebaker noted.
Back seven years ago, Ben Michaelis, a clinical psychologist who has carried out cognitive assessments for the New York Supreme Court, conducted a review of Donald Trump’s speaking style and found that the now-former president lost his train of thought and bounced fleetingly from one topic to the next often; a rather clear sign of diminishing cognitive ability.
“There’s reasonable evidence suggestive of forms of dementia,” Michaelis said at the time. “The reduction in complexity of sentences and vocabulary does lead you to a certain picture of cognitive diminishment.”
You can find the full, updated analysis from STAT here.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
