I missed this polling question from a couple of weeks ago. It seems important:
Six in ten Americans, including a significant portion of the Republican Party’s support base, now believe President Donald Trump is becoming more unstable as he grows older.
As reported by Reuters.com (25/02), citing the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, 61% of respondents overall agreed with the description of Trump as “becoming unstable with age”.
This figure comprised 89% of Democrats, 64% of independent voters, and 30% of Republicans.
He’s always spoken at what experts say is about a 4th grade level. The next lowest was Truman with a 6th grade speaking level:
That chart was made during the first term and he’s slipped since then. He has the nerve to say that Biden (who was rated between 6th and 8th grade speaking level) and call out Gavin Newsom for admitting that he has dyslexia, saying that makes him dumb.
Trump has slipped since his first term. Badly. This is from the campaign in 2024:
Trump has always been discursive and often untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.
According to a @nytimes computer analysis, Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13% more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did 8 years ago.
He uses 32% more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21% in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swear words 69% more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition.
As president in 2.0 we can see that it’s not just his words. He’s going to war every other day now. He’s falling asleep in meetings. He makes less sense every time he talks. It’s obvious that he’s lost more than a step. For a man who started out with serious intellectual deficits and massive character flaws, he didn’t have much mental capacity to lose but he’s losing what little he had. I’m glad to see that so many Americans can see it, including 30% of Republicans.