Trump's Brain is Mush: Hannibal Lecter Edition

We've never seen anything like this.

For the past decade, Donald Trump's stream-of-consciousness has been something to behold. He cannot stay on topic, even provided with a pre-written speech on a teleprompter. Ask him an unscripted question and we get the proverbial word salad that we saw this past week with his incoherent rambling when asked about childcare at the Economic Club of New York. Trump has the same laundry list of terms and phrases that he'll work into every answer, no matter what was asked. When he begins an answer with "a lot of people are saying" you already know what he's about to say is a lie or a conspiracy theory. While the media gleefully went after Joe Biden for his misstatements, they have simply come to accept Donald Trump's nonsense and have even gone so far as to clean up the crazy. It has gotten so bad that independent journalists like Aaron Rupar and Parker Malloy have elevated the term "sanewashing" to describe the media's role in trying to clean up Trump's convoluted responses. Despite these efforts, Trump continues to fall back on enigmatic themes and messages, the most prominent of which has now become none other than Hannibal Lecter.

Why Hannibal Lecter?

While our media has simply shrugged this off as a Trump oddball talking point, there is something deeper at play here that they refuse to recognize. On Saturday, Trump again brought up Lecter, this time at a speech in Wisconsin where Trump claimed Lecter was a "representative of people coming into our country." This is just the latest in a series of speeches where Trump has mentioned the fictitious serial killer and it has gotten to the point now that we have an ongoing debate as to how and why this continues to happen. While some such as former President Bill Clinton have mocked Trump's "endless tributes" to Lecter and SNL has brought on Lecter during a cold opening, something deeper is at play. Trump himself has gone so far as to say that these are "real stories" about Lecter leading to even more media speculation as to whether or not Trump actually believes that Lecter was a real person. Do we honestly have a presidential candidate whose brain is so demented that he no longer knows who is real and who is not? 

Or do we have someone whose brain is so gone that he is now grasping at straws? 

Shortly after Trump's July 19th RNC speech mentioning Lecter, former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa posited a new theory: Donald Trump talks about Hannibal Lecter when he talks about immigration because he thinks immigrants seeking asylum are like Hannibal Lecter who is in an asylum.
Rangappa's theory is that Trump can't disassociate the two separate meanings of the word "asylum" as his brain is so far gone that when he's supposed to talk about immigrants his brain jumps to asylum and ultimately to Hannibal Lecter, the fictitious character who was locked up in an actual asylum. 

Based on Trump's pattern of when and how he references Hannibal Lecter, this theory makes sense. But how have we gotten to this point? How have we created a political landscape where a man who can't separate fiction from reality, a man who can't process two separate meanings for the same word, a man who doesn't understand his own stream of consciousness, has been able to not only be taken seriously but to be seen as an equal to one of the most qualified Democratic Party nominees in history?

The truth is that without Joe Biden in the race, the media has conveniently downplayed Trump's declining mental health. While the whole Hannibal Lecter references are worrisome enough on their own, they are part of a pattern of Trump's mind faltering, something that our media has ignored while trying to project onto Joe Biden. While there was a longstanding tradition of not diagnosing public figures, the media ignored that when they raised faux concern over Joe Biden having Parkinson's Disease while simultaneously ignoring a Cornell medical expert documenting early signs of dementia with Donald Trump. As multiple folks on social media have commented, there has been zero concern about Trump's age since Biden withdrew, even though he is now the oldest candidate ever to run for president. The media was more than happy to beat down Biden to raise up Trump. Without Biden, they are simply ignoring what have become genuine concerns about Donald Trump's mental decline and his inability to understand multiple meanings of a single word.

Donald Trump won't be asked about Hannibal Lecter at tomorrow's debate. He won't be asked about him on Fox News. Any additional mentions will be shrugged off with the whole "that's Trump being Trump" mindset that has permeated our media coverage. But for those of us paying attention, it's critical to point out that Donald Trump has always been deranged and unhinged. Adding in a declining mental state makes Trump even more dangerous than he was in 2016. If Trump has an even more sinister view of immigrants and asylum-seekers than he did during his presidency then imagine what he'll put Stephen Miller in charge of this time around. If you thought a thousand children in cages was bad, imagine what would happen if Trump honestly believed that all asylum-seekers were dangerous and violent individuals like Hannibal Lecter. Do we really think that anyone in a second Trump Administration will have the guts to stand up to him and tell him that not all immigrants are rapists and thieves?

Trump has always been a terrible person. But his cognitive decline is bringing out his worst impulses. Giving the nuclear codes to a man who conflates the term asylum with a fictional character would be a disaster of epic proportions. It's simply another reason why we must destroy him and his enablers in November. Because 2024 Donald Trump is so much more dangerous than 2016 Donald Trump and that version of Trump was the most dangerous president we ever had. This new, decrepit version of Donald Trump is so raw, so vindictive, that there's no telling what he will do. He already can't distinguish between fantasy and reality. Imagine what will happen if he's put back into power and surrounded by those just as heinous as him. There wouldn't be anyone stopping his worst impulses and there would be nobody to question his ever-loosening grip on reality.

That's why we have to take seriously Trump's mental decline when our media won't. Having a malignant narcissist slowly losing his faculties will revert him to a state where he'll cling to his own survival. Putin will get anything he wants. So too will Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Kim Jong-Un will get ever more love letters. The deportation of 12 million immigrants will be underway. Project 2025's goal of replacing 50,000 career civil servants with Trump loyalists will be immediately enacted. Giving Trump the keys to the White House is like giving your drunk uncle the keys to the Ferrari: you know what will happen and you know that there will be massive collateral damage along the way. We have to not only vote for Kamala Harris but we have to vote for each and every Democrat to ensure that Republicans never again have an opportunity to elect someone with the same dangerous mental state as Donald Trump ever again.

A dangerous mental state enabled by the entire Republican Party and our feckless media.

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