Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

In his newsletter today, Dan Pfeiffer looks at the bizarre phenomenon of a presidential candidate getting much more popular after he’s indicted four times:

A number of theories surfaced to explain this unexpected and deeply concerning outcome — Republicans are a cult, Ron DeSantis sucks, etc. Elections are dynamic enterprises. There are a lot of interrelated factors that lead to an outcome. It’s not as simple as “Ron DeSantis sucks,” even if he is one of the most maladroit candidates in modern political history. Here are X findings from recent polls that help explain why Republican voters are flocking to Trump as his likelihood of spending the rest of his life in prison skyrockets:

1. Republicans Trust Trump Over Everyone Else

Donald Trump is one of the most prolific and obvious liars the world has ever known. Here’s how the Washington Post fact checker summarized Trump’s presidency:

Over time, Trump unleashed his falsehoods with increasing frequency and ferocity, often by the scores in a single campaign speech or tweetstorm. What began as a relative trickle of misrepresentations, including 10 on his first day and five on the second, built into a torrent through Trump’s final days as he frenetically spread wild theories that the coronavirus pandemic would disappear “like a miracle” and that the presidential election had been stolen — the claim that inspired Trump supporters to attack Congress on Jan. 6 and prompted his second impeachment. The final tally of Trump’s presidency: 30,573 false or misleading claims — with nearly half coming in his final year.

Trump’s dishonesty is so blatant that most Americans find it disqualifying, but Trump’s voters see only qualifications. They do not believe he is dishonest. They think he is the only honest man in public life. A CBS News/YouGov poll asked Trump voters who they feel tells them the truth. Trump was seen as more truthful than friends and family or religious leaders.

This finding helps explain why all of this damaging information about Trump from the various indictments, not to mention the January 6th committee or the media, keeps voters in Trump’s corner — they trust Trump more. If Jack Smith or Fani Willis says Trump did all these bad things and Trump says (or Truths) “I’m innocent” it’s clear who they will believe. Trump isn’t their most trusted source of information, he is their only trusted source of information.

2. A Hermetically Sealed Information Bubble

In addition to not believing the negative information about Trump, many Republican voters simply aren’t getting the other side. If they do encounter news about Trump’s crimes, it’s refracted through the lens of the Right Wing media.

In August, a New York Times/Sienna poll asked Republican voters which news source they trusted most:

Fox News 26%

Social Media 12%

National Broadcast TV 11%

Conservative News Sites 6%

Local Broadcast News 6%

Newsmax 5%

The Republican base lives in a hermetically sealed information bubble that protects Trump from the damaging revelations that have undone so many other political figures.

3. Republicans Think Trump Can’t Lose

If you have spent any time recently on Twitter or in group chats with politically active Democrats, you’ve witnessed their mild panic about the 2024 election. Poll after poll show an alarmingly close race, which has sent Democratic blood pressures skyrocketing. Even though these very same polls have Trump tied with Biden, Republican voters are not concerned. According to a CBS News/YouGov poll, 61% of Republican voters think Trump would DEFINITELY beat Biden.

The level of confidence is delusional given two facts. One, Trump is in grave legal jeopardy; and two, Biden beat Trump less than three years ago. This delusion is fueled by the Right Wing media’s caricature of Biden’s age and competence, but also explains why Republicans are sticking with Trump — they believe to their core that he is the best chance to beat Biden.

DeSantis’s pitch that he is Trump without the baggage falls flat because GOP voters simply don’t believe Trump has baggage.

They also don’t believe Trump really lost in 2020. They think he’s a proven winner against Biden.

4. GOP Voters are Nonplussed by the Charges

There is a possibility that Donald Trump will be sentenced to prison before the 2024 election. Presidential primary voters support candidates for two reasons — they think a candidate can win and if that candidate wins, they will be a president who effectively implements their vision. On paper, at least, it would seem that campaigning in prison would pose a real obstacle to one’s success and a functional presidency. Even if you believed to your core that Trump was innocent — as most Republican voters do — the circumstances of his indictments should give you some pause about his ability to win and govern.

For whatever reason, Republicans are not in the least worried about the logistical or political impact of the indictments. A recent CNN poll found that majorities of Republicans are not at all concerned about the political or substantive impact of the charges.

Nearly seven in ten Republicans are unconcerned about 91 felony counts that could lead to decades of prison time. They don’t believe it will impact Trump’s efficacy as president. This is the whole story of the GOP primary contest that is barely a contest.

That’s crazy. But they think he has magical powers apparently and will be able to function as president even though he’s a convicted felon looking at jail time. The only explanation for this is that these people are cult followers or they are so cynical they just don’t care and are willing to say anything because they want to win. It’s ridiculous.

Keep in mind that this is probably the biggest cult in world history. Over 50 million people are participating to one degree or another.

But he did it anyway

McCarthy doesn’t take questions. He told Breitbart 11 days ago he wouldn’t launch an impeachment inquiry without a House vote. Opening one now unilaterally is a major reversal for the speaker. It comes as he doesn’t appear to have the votes to proceed. pic.twitter.com/H0rSVvqLlt

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) September 12, 2023

McCarthy pulled the trigger as we knew he would. He didn’t have the votes for a real inquiry, however, which means that the new rules they say they need will have to be litigated because a full vote of the House is required. So, this may end up being yet another performance art project which the extremists hope will make voters assume there must be something to it and write off Trump’s corruptions and criminality because “both sides do it.”

It’s ridiculous but we expected nothing less. Now let’s see if McCarthy bought himself at least an extension to get the government funded. I won’t be surprised if they say, “that’s nice, but we also need to have the DOJ and the “woke” Pentagon de-funded. McCarthy will try to do whatever they want but at some point he’s going to have to put something to a vote and he doesn’t have them. The whole thing is a farce.

Designed-in countermajoritarian features contribute to minority rule

Michelle Goldberg speaks with Harvard government professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. The authors of “How Democracies Die” (2018) released “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point” this morning. What shocked them since 2018 was how swiflty the GOP slid sown the behavioral sink into insurrection. They did not consider the Republican Party an authoritarian party in 2018, and “did not expect it to transform so quickly and so thoroughly.”

Goldberg writes:

“Tyranny of the Minority” is their attempt to make sense of how American democracy eroded so fast. “Societal diversity, cultural backlash and extreme-right parties are ubiquitous across established Western democracies,” they write. But in recent years, only in America has a defeated leader attempted a coup. And only in America is the coup leader likely to once again be the nominee of a major party. “Why did America, alone among rich established democracies, come to the brink?” they ask.

A disturbing part of the answer, Levitsky and Ziblatt conclude, lies in our Constitution, the very document Americans rely on to defend us from autocracy. “Designed in a predemocratic era, the U.S. Constitution allows partisan minorities to routinely thwart majorities, and sometimes even govern them,” they write. The Constitution’s countermajoritarian provisions, combined with profound geographic polarization, have locked us into a crisis of minority rule.

These features have enabled Republicans to chalk up three Electoral College wins despite having won a majority of presidential votes “in only one out of the last eight presidential elections.” Add in their post-2010, RedMap gerrymandering and Republicans “don’t need to win over the majority of voters.” As their base has become more radical, so have elected Republicans.

All liberal democracies have some countermajoritarian institutions to stop popular passions from running roughshod over minority rights. But as “Tyranny of the Minority” shows, our system is unique in the way it empowers a minority ideological faction at the expense of everyone else. And while conservatives like to pretend that their structural advantages arise from the judicious wisdom of the founders, Levitsky and Ziblatt demonstrate how many of the least democratic aspects of American governance are the result of accident, contingency and, not least, capitulation to the slaveholding South.

“The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus said. And the legacy of slavery, the country’s original sin?

Levitsky and Ziblatt think it is unavoidable that reformers “engage in the glacial slog of constitutional reform,” and naive to think things will just work out if the country keeps on as it is.

More consolidation of population in cities in blue states will simply exacerbate the antimajoritarian lean of the Senate and of state legislatures if Democrats keep ceding the countryside.

Goldberg concludes:

“I think the United States faces a high risk of serious and repeated constitutional crisis, what I would call regime instability, quite possibly accompanied by some violence,” said Levitsky. “I’m not as worried about the consolidation of autocracy, Hungary or Russia-style. I think that the opposition forces, civil society forces, are probably too strong for that.” Let’s hope that this time he’s not being too optimistic.

I did not think Americans were dumb enough or crazy enough to elect Donald Trump in 2016. Now reading David Dayen’s pre-insurrection “Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power” (2020). It’s enough to make me crawl into a hole. I’m not sure which will end us first, metastasized capitalism or allied autocracy.

They’re making every effort to prove it

First thing this morning, up pops a Kaitlan Collins CNN interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). Collins posts:

Rep. Nancy Mace says she supports a House impeachment inquiry. Asked isn’t it supposed to be the evidence that leads you to pursue an impeachment inquiry, Mace responds, “That’s what the inquiry is for, to get more evidence.”

Marcy Wheeler (@emptywheel from Ireland) responds:

BREAKING: @NancyMace admits, 1) She hasn’t read Biden’s tax releases, which unlike Trump, Biden releases 2) she’s willing to engage in a constitutional abomination of impeaching BECAUSE there’s no evidence of wrongdoing.

Trump wants his retribution NOW

Let’s cut to the chase. Digby summarized what’s behind this nonsense on Monday:

It’s absolutely the case that they are doing this for Trump because he has demanded it. That goes without saying. But since they are all bent on destroying democracy and the constitutional order, de-legitimizing the impeachment process is a no brainer. If they have the power (meaning a 2/3 Senate majority) they will remove any Democratic president for whatever trumped up charges they come up with. If they don’t have the power they will use it as yet another of their patented performance art projects. Impeachment will be devalued so that even if Democrats have the evidence and the power to remove, it will be seen as illegitimate. Win win for the bad guys.

For further proof, it is not just Republicans inside the Beltway pursuing an “if you can’t beat ’em, impeach ’em agenda.” * Wisconsin Republicans, secure in their heavily gerrymandered districts and with a supermajority in the state legislature, intend to engineer the suspension (via impeachus interruptus) of the newly elected state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz. Earlier this year, Jamelle Bouie reminds us, the Milwaukee liberal won her seat on the court by double digits in a special election with record turnout, ending the partisan advantage held by Republicans.

What has Protasiewicz done so soon to merit impeachment? Nothing, yet. So what? (Bouie):

Wisconsin Republicans can’t strip a judicial officer of her power. But they can remove her, which is what they intend to do. “Republicans in Wisconsin are coalescing around the prospect of impeaching a newly seated liberal justice on the state’s Supreme Court,” my newsroom colleague Reid J. Epstein reports. “The push, just five weeks after Justice Janet Protasiewicz joined the court and before she has heard a single case, serves as a last-ditch effort to stop the new 4-to-3 liberal majority from throwing out Republican-drawn state legislative maps and legalizing abortion in Wisconsin.”

Republicans have more than enough votes in the Wisconsin State Assembly to impeach Justice Protasiewicz and just enough votes in the State Senate — a two-thirds majority — to remove her. But removal would allow Governor Evers to appoint another liberal jurist, which is why Republicans don’t plan to convict and remove Protasiewicz. If, instead, the Republican-led State Senate chooses not to act on impeachment, Justice Protasiewicz is suspended but not removed. The court would then revert to a 3-3 deadlock, very likely preserving the Republican gerrymander and keeping a 19th-century abortion law, which bans the procedure, on the books.

If successful, Wisconsin Republicans will have created, in effect, an unbreakable hold on state government. With their gerrymander in place, they have an almost permanent grip on the State Legislature, with supermajorities in both chambers. With these majorities, they can limit the reach and power of any Democrat elected to statewide office and remove — or neutralize — any justice who might rule against the gerrymander.

Or Protasiewicz could rule to overturn the state’s 19th-century abortion law. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow provided a primer Monday night, calling the maneuver “a nice trick”) :

Republicans in this swing state also plan to fire Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that “the Democratic Attorney General and the Legislature’s nonpartisan attorneys concluded earlier this month” that the Senate technically has no power to remove Wolfe. So what?

Evidence not required

Regarding the Republican threat to impeach Biden, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D) of Maryland, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, rebuked Chairman James Comer (R) of Kentucky in a letter for promoting debunked claims and second-hand allegations.

In a statement, Raskin denounced the committee’s efforts as:

… a transparent effort to boost Donald Trump’s campaign by establishing a false moral equivalency between Trump—the four time-indicted former president now facing 91 federal and state criminal charges, based on a mountain of damning evidence for a shocking range of felonies, including lying to the FBI, endangering national security by illegally keeping classified documents, and conspiring to subvert the U.S. Constitution—and President Biden, against whom there is precisely zero evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever.  To the contrary, Chairman Comer’s investigation has conclusively disproven the Republican allegations against President Biden.

Raskin provides receipts:

Not only does this voluminous evidence fail to even suggest any wrongdoing by President Biden, it in fact proves the opposite.  Specifically:

• None of the bank records Comer has released shows any payments to President Biden. 
• None of the SARs the Committee reviewed alleges, or even suggests, any potential misconduct by President Biden, nor do the SARs show any involvement by President Biden in Hunter Biden’s financial or business relationships. 
• Not one of the witness accounts provided to the Committee has shown any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden, including accounts from two IRS agents and a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent, who were involved in the DOJ’s investigation of Hunter Biden. 
• Former business associates of Hunter Biden who have been interviewed by the Committee—Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer—explicitly stated that they have no reason to believe President Biden had any involvement in Hunter Biden’s business deals, much less any reason to believe President Biden took any official action on behalf of his son’s business ventures.
• Mr. Schwerin, who performed bookkeeping and other administrative tasks for then Vice-President Biden and therefore had access to his bank records, stated that he was not aware of any involvement by President Biden in the financial conduct of his relatives’ businesses, much less any transactions into or out of the then-Vice President’s bank account related to business conducted by any Biden family member.
• Two IRS agents who testified before the Committee affirmed that they do not have any evidence of political interference by President Biden or Attorney General Merrick Garland. 
• The Former FBI Supervisory Special Agent interviewed by the Committee rejected Republicans’ claims that prosecutorial decisions by U.S. Attorney David Weiss or his team were the result of any political interference. 

So what? Dear Leader wants his revenge and he wants it now. And a compliant press is abetting the GOP by reporting the faux controversy over “bribery” and repeating “too old” stories about Biden in their accustomed “but her emails” style.

Really, the GOP should have to turn in their pocket Constitutions, American flags, and red-white-and-blue trinkets. There’s little American left of them but the branding. Just like Brand Trump.

* Before reminding me of Donald Trump’s two impeachments by Democrats, reference Donald Trump’s 91 criminal charges across four jurisdictions with more likely to come.

** For some reason, ‘X’ embeds are not working this morning.

Think again

A children’s book about a lion raised by two men has been banned in Florida because right-wing activists suspect the men might be gay – despite nothing in the book suggesting they have any romantic relationship, according to a report.

The Florida Department of Education released new information about books that were banned or temporarily removed pending investigation in various county school systems as part of the state’s new laws making it easier to challenge material in a school library, reported the Tallahassee Democrat. One of the books was “Christian, the Hugging Lion.”

According to the report, schools in Manatee County, a conservative community just south of Tampa, withdrew the book that’s based on the true story about a pair of men who raise a lion in their London apartment, then are lovingly remembered by the animal when they go to Africa to see him years later.

Nothing in the book indicates the two men are in a same-sex relationship — but activists speculated that they might be, which was enough for a complaint about the book.

As the report notes, “Christian, the Hugging Lion” was written by the same authors who wrote “And Tango Makes Three,” a book about a pair of male penguins who raise a family. That book is also restricted in some Florida schools, and the authors have filed a federal lawsuit against Florida and a county school board.

This is only the latest in a series of bans and restrictions on content in schools being pushed in Florida. Last month, state laws prompted a school system in Hillsborough County to heavily redact the works of William Shakespeare, teaching only excerpts of his plays.

I don’t understand why anyone would think people this obsessed wouldn’t work to overturn gay marriage. They don’t even want their kids contemplating that two people of the same sex might live together much less be married. Watch out room mates! They’re coming for you too!

Seriously, thinking little kids must be protected from the true story that two men who raised a lion and set it free is just sick. All the kids would see is two nice men who loved an animal and an animal who loved them back. The horror.

This is bad:

This, on the other hand, is fine:

The looming impeachment has a grander purpose

Noah Berlatsky writes:

Republicans have openly admitted that their efforts to impeach President Joe Biden — which will begin in earnest this week as House members return to DC from summer break — are in bad faith. They don’t just want to tarnish Biden. They want to tarnish the impeachment process itself.

As the GOP has become increasingly authoritarian and anti-democracy, Republicans have become increasingly committed to undermining and mocking forms of democratic accountability. A nakedly partisan and clownish impeachment is useful because it signals to voters that all impeachments are clown shows, and all impeachments are partisan. That exculpates former President Donald Trump and delegitimizes resistance to him should he win the presidency again.

It’s absolutely the case that they are doing this for Trump because he has demanded it. That goes without saying. But since they are all bent on destroying democracy and the constitutional order, de-legitimizing the impeachment process is a no brainer. If they have the power (meaning a 2/3 Senate majority) they will remove any Democratic president for whatever trumped up charges they come up with. If they don’t have the power they will use it as yet another of their patented performance art projects. Impeachment will be devalued so that even if Democrats have the evidence and the power to remove, it will be seen as illegitimate. Win win for the bad guys.

STEVE HILTON (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): I mean, of course it’s laughable, the Biden aspect. Almost everything with Biden is laughable. But it’s really serious, it’s really infuriating, Harris. Because we never had what I and many others called for, which is a completely objective, independent assessment of the COVID policies that were implemented to see what worked and didn’t. We never had that. And so as a result we are now back to these absurd, preposterous kind of witchcraft and voodoo masquerading as public health from these tin-pot fascists and their authoritarianism, exactly as Rand Paul was talking about. We have to resist this. We have to resist it at every level, as J.D. Vance is doing at the federal level, we have to resist this at the state level, the local level, the individual level. We cannot let them go back to this madness.

Here’s more:

Uhm, toddlers can have total hysterics when you try to put their pants on or wash their hands. They’re toddlers. So are these right wingers who are still having tantrums over wearing masks.

And they are wrong about the efficacy of wearing them. This from the NY Times provides the current thinking on mask wearing:

“I tend to say, if you’re going to go out, make sure you have a mask in your car, a couple masks at home or at work, so you always have something available to put on,” said Andrew Pekosz, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Here’s a refresher on where, when and how to mask.

When should you wear a mask inside?

Everyone’s risk tolerance varies, Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said. But particularly if you are 65 or older, have an underlying condition that makes you more vulnerable to severe disease or are pregnant, he recommends wearing a mask whenever you are in a relatively confined, crowded indoor space. That can include stores, offices and public transportation.

“Certainly every time you add another person to the room, particularly people who are within three to five feet of you, that increases your chance of getting infected, exponentially,” Dr. Pekosz added.

Time matters, too: Darting in and out of a packed grocery store is less risky than working all day in a busy office, for example. Ten minutes is a good marker to keep in mind, Dr. Pekosz said. If you’re headed somewhere indoors for longer than that, you may want to consider putting on a mask beforehand.

Which type of mask should you wear?

Dr. Marr recommends N95, KN95 or KF94 masks, all of which filter out over 90 percent of virus particles, she said, making them far more effective than surgical or cloth masks at reducing your chance of getting infected with Covid. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a list of resources for where to find free N95s.

The experts said that a mask should fit snugly across your face and cover both your nose and mouth; wearing a mask below your nose will do very little to shield you from the virus.

A high-quality mask “does wonders in terms of protecting you from getting infected, but you have to wear it the right way,” Dr. Pekosz said. “If you don’t crimp the metal thing around your nose, if it’s loose around you, then you’re probably breathing around the mask, not through the mask. And that is not going to protect you.”

Some experts estimate that you can use a mask for a total of about 40 hours before it’s time to replace it. If you notice fraying, creases, new holes or dirt on your mask, you should replace it before then, Dr. Marr said. If your mask is uncomfortable, or if you feel like it’s moving too much across your face, Dr. Marr recommends trying different brands to find the best fit.

Do you need to mask after being exposed?

If you get the dreaded text that someone you recently spent time with has tested positive for Covid, the C.D.C. recommends putting on a high-quality mask as soon as possible, and keeping it on for 10 full days when you’re around other people. Even if you test negative, the agency says you should still wear a mask in public indoor settings. It can take several days for people to develop symptoms, Dr. Pekosz said, and testing too early can lead to false negatives.

Is one-way masking effective?

Even if you’re the only person wearing one on the subway or in your office, a high-quality mask can still meaningfully reduce your risk of getting infected. “You’re going to be pretty well protected,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a professor of global health and infectious diseases at Stanford Medicine, because you’re guarding your face from the particles around you.

There are additional ways to build up your defenses against the virus: sanitizing your hands before touching your face, social distancing from others and getting an updated booster shot when the new vaccines are available.

While many people are exhausted by this long pandemic, Dr. Maldonado stressed it’s important to remember that we have tools to reduce our risk. “Masks work, period,” she said. “Whether you choose to use them or not is a different matter. But they definitely work.”

Of course they do. And since we are now in “every man for himself” territory, all we can do is try to protect ourselves and our loved ones. If we had a healthy society we’d gratefully embrace the idea that we have the means to protect all vulnerable people but that’s not who we are so we just have to do what we can.

Trump “memorializes” 9/11

He is currently in business with Saudi Arabia’s LIV golf, happy to whitewash their past as he did when he proclaimed MBS innocent of ordering the death and dismemberment of Jamaal Kashoggi. His first trip as president was to genuflect to their king. And his son-in-law delivered so much to the Saudi government while he was in the White House that they gave him 2 billion dollars in thanks immediately upon leaving office.

Also this, when he called in to a radio station on the morning of 9/11 and bragged about how he now had the tallest building in Manhattan, which was, naturally, a lie:

 “I mean, 40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan. And it was actually – before the World Trade Center – was the tallest. And then when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest, and now it’s the tallest.”

As multiple fact checks later pointed out, this was not true. The Wall Street building had not been the tallest building in lower Manhattan in the 1970s, when the Twin Towers were constructed, nor was it the tallest in the area after 2001.

By the time of Mr Trump’s interview, both buildings of the World Trade Center had collapsed after planes hijacked by Al Qaeda terrorists had smashed into them. Two other planes had also crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone onboard. In total, nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks.

But Mr Trump’s attention was elsewhere. Later in the interview, he complained about the closing of the New York Stock Exchange.

“I was so disappointed when they closed the stock exchange, but of course, at some point, you have no choice,” the real estate mogul said. “You want to just say, ‘The hell with it, you’re going forward, nothing’s gonna change.’ But the fact is, something has changed very dramatically.”

He’s the last person who should ever talk about 9/11. It’s offensive.

They weren’t all human

Today we’re remembering the dogs of 9/11. 15/10 for all ❤ pic.twitter.com/A1hYe81Hai

— WeRateDogs (@dog_rates) September 11, 2023

It runs in his family…

On Sunday night Donald Trump threw down the gauntlet at the feet of Rupert Murdoch and his sons, Joe Biden and the “WSJ heads.” He posted this cri de guerre on his social media platform Truth Social:

In a phony and probably rigged Wall Street Journal poll, coming out of nowhere to soften the mental incompetence blow that is so obvious with Crooked Joe Biden, they ask about my age and mentality. Where did that come from? A few years ago I was the only one to agree to a mental acuity test, & ACED IT. Now that the Globalists at Fox & the WSJ have failed to push their 3rd tier candidate to success, they do this. Well, I hereby challenge Rupert Murdoch & Sons, Biden, WSJ heads, to acuity tests!

He added:

I will name the place and the test, and it will be a tough one. Nobody will come even close to me! We can also throw some physical activity into it. I just won the Senior Club Championship at a big golf club, with many very good players. To do so you need strength, accuracy, touch and, above all, mental toughness. Ask Bret Baier (Fox), a very good golfer. The Wall Street Journal & Fox are damaged goods after their failed DeSanctimonious push & stupid $780,000,000 “settlement.” MORONS!!!

That’s just a little bit over the top even for him, don’t you think? All the WSJ did was publish a poll question asking Biden and Trump were too old to be president. His own pollster was a partner in the poll so he should probably take it up with him. And despite the fact that he’s 77 years old and would be 78 when he re-assumes the presidency should he win in 2024, he seems to think that’s off limits because he “aced” the The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test given to him some years ago by his favorite White House doctor Ronny Jackson.

The test is designed to track cognitive changes over time. It’s not an “acuity” test or an IQ test but Trump has gone back to it again and again as proof of his mental fitness. In the famous interview in which he bragged that he had been able to remember a string of words he explained that it was actually quite difficult:

Trump portraying passing a cognitive test at the hospital like he just discovered the theory of relativity is completely beyond parody pic.twitter.com/YyYwu3yXik

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 23, 2020

No normal person would make such a bit deal out of that test because it’s obvious to anyone with a brain that it’s just a memory test that many elderly people take to see if they may have signs of dementia. He acts as though he just scored 1600 on the SAT (which, by the way, he reportedly paid someone to take for him.) Or maybe he thinks the MoCA is actually MENSA?

But this incessant reminder that he was able to take this very simple test and that all the doctors were shocked because nobody ever does that well is just … pathetic. And it’s very telling. It’s one thing to just assert that you are a very stable genius, as preposterous as that is, but it’s quite another to brag about passing a very rudimentary memory test over and over and over again.

And it is rudimentary.

Trump about the cognitive test he took: "… The first few questions are easy, but I'll bet you couldn't even answer the last five questions. I'll bet you couldn't, they get very hard, the last five questions."

The last five questions: "What day is it?" and "Where are you?" pic.twitter.com/NFQN055nSf

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 19, 2020

He knows that he’s not all that bright and it drives him crazy. Back in July of 2022 he told his rally crowd:

“I said ‘Ronnie, I don’t like when people call me stupid. I have great heritage, an uncle who was a great, great genius, a father who was a genius, they’re all geniuses, we had a lot of geniuses. I don’t like being called stupid. Is there a test I can take to prove to these radical left maniacs that I’m much smarter than them?

He’s worried. He’s been worried for years. And evidently he had heard talk that people might want to remove him for “incapacitation.” He gave a speech to the Heritage Foundation in which he claimed that “they” were trying to get him with an “Article 5” but “they don’t think about it now, the 25th Amendment. They don’t think about that now at all, they never mention the 25th. But they would never – any time I had a great idea they would mention –’25th Amendment, there’s something wrong with him.'”

If only “they ” had had the guts to do it.

He’s terrified of developing Alzheimer’s disease because his father had it. As the New York Times reported at the time of his “person, woman, man, camera TV” moment, he said, “…I have, like, a good memory, because I’m cognitively there. Now, Joe should take that test, because something’s going on and, and, I say this with respect. I mean — going to probably happen to all of us, right? You know? It’s going to happen.”

According to his niece Mary Trump’s book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” Trump derided his father when he was ill with Alzheimer’s — and took full advantage of it by coercing him into changing the will in Donald’s favor. Mary Trump has taped interviews with Trump’s sister who said, “Dad was in dementia…I show it to [husband]John, and he says, ‘Holy s–t.’ It was basically taking the whole estate and giving it to Donald.” She also said that Trump “has no principles” and “you can’t trust him,” which is stating the obvious.

There were lawsuits over Fred Trump’s will and the Washington Post reported that Donald testified in a deposition that he didn’t know his father had dementia and that he believed he was “very, very sharp.” That is certainly a lie. He’d been in cognitive decline for years by that point.

It’s quite obvious that Trump is clinging to that test as a way to reassure himself that he’s not impaired. But, of course, he is and on some level he knows it. He may not have dementia but he’s got so many other psychological defects that it hardly matters. After all, the man has bought himself two felony indictments for the simple reason that he couldn’t admit that he lost.

As his niece Mary Trump said, “his talking about the dementia test the way he’s talking about it is failing the dementia test.”. And he fails it again every time he talks about it. He just can’t seem to stop himself.