Let’s revisit the topic of cognitive decline– because the President-elect seems to be in the middle of a cognitive freefall.
by Kevin Seraaj, OrlandoAdvocate.com
The textbook definition of cognitive decline is the gradual loss of thinking abilities such as paying attention, learning, remembering and reasoning.
Back in February 2017, 35 U.S. psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers signed a letter sent to the editor of The New York Times warning about Trump’s “mental health.” Even though none of them had personally evaluated him, they wrote that they “believe[d] that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.”
But it’s about more than “emotional stability.” Trump is suffering from serious mental issues, as evidenced by the difficulty we see him having in thinking, remembering and reasoning. Forget for a moment his pathological lying. (The Washington Post cataloged over 35,000 lies and misleading statements told by Trump during and after his first term. The New York Times also cataloged his untruths. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html.) Lying is not itself an indicator of mental problems, but when combined with his confusion and nonsensical ramblings, they point to a person who cannot grasp and hold on to basic facts. At 78, Trump is certainly in the affected age group. He calls his ramblings “the weave.“
When a relative of mine was taken to the emergency room for possible diagnosis of onset dementia, the first question he was asked by medical personnel was “who is the president of the United States?” It’s a sort of litmus est of mental cognition.
In a speech Trump gave last year ( Pray Vote Stand summit) he said Barack Obama was the president . He also said he was “leading by a lot against Obama,” and further confirmed his mental confusion by saying, “[w]ith Obama, we won an election that everyone said couldn’t be won.”
Many times, Trump’s deteriorating mental condition comes to the forefront as nonsensical speech. Here’s an example from a speech he gave in September 2024.
“Oh there’s a fly. I wonder where the fly came from? See, two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. We can’t take it any longer.”
Trump is seriously struggling, but his “handlers” are only interested in capitalizing off his cult-like popularity to get control of he government— and not getting him the help he so desperately needs. As he heads into his 80s, his mental acuity will only continue to degrade.
In October of last year, Former White House physician Jeffrey Kuhlman said that while Trump “appears in good health” for his age, he nonetheless raised concerns about the aging President-elect’s cognitive ability for critical decision making.
- “[Trump] exhibits cognitive decline in reasoning, memory, and processing speed, consistent with his advanced age,” ssid
- Kuhlman, who worked with former Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama.
Project 2025
Project 2025 is, in a word, disturbing. Democrats and true patriots should understand that groups like the Heritage Foundation— who are the true instigators of the plan— have looked beyond the “reign of Trump” to 2028 and beyond. Based on what I’ve read, it would not surprise me if the radical right turned on him fairly early in his presidency. They won’t use the 25th Amendment, because they need to keep him in office. They have another vehicle. It’s called Project 25. And the control of Trump Look for this shift to begin soon after the head of the Office of Management and Budget is named. He or she has probably already been identified.
On page 44 of Project 2025, the architects of the plan lay out their true agenda: to put “presidential power” into the hands of another player. And it won’t be J.D. Vance.
Project 2025 says:
“OMB (Office of Management and Budget) assists the President in the execution of his policy agenda across the government by employing many statutory and executive procedural levers to bring the bureaucracy in line with all budgetary, regulatory, and management decisions.”
So, what exactly are these “statutory and executive procedural levers” that will be employed to bring the (entire?) bureaucracy in line? For some, this might sound like political gobbledygook., but the authors of the Plan explain it this way:
“[The OMB] is a President’s air-traffic control system with the ability and charge to ensure that all policy initiatives are flying in sync and with the authority to let planes take off and, at times, ground planes that are flying off course.”
Anyone who understands the importance of air traffic control to this nation’s transportation hub can see just how important Project 2025 considers this agency to be. OMB is clearly an agency they want to control— regardless of who the president might be:
“OMB cannot perform its role on behalf of the President effectively if it is not intimately involved in all aspects of the White House policy process and lacks knowledge of what the agencies are doing. . . . The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind as it pertains to the policy agenda while always being ready with actual options to effect that agenda within existing legal authorities and resources.”
This is a very sly setup of a transfer of policy power away from the President. Read:
“This role cannot be performed adequately if the Director acts instead as the ambassador of the institutional interests of OMB and the wider bureaucracy to the White House. Once its reputation as the keeper of ‘commander’s intent’ is established, then and only then does OMB have the ability to shape the most efficient way to pursue an objective.”
So, it’s not enough to make the Director of OMB a mere ambassador acting on behalf of the president. He (or she) has to be the “Keeper of the President’s Intent.” Think carefully about what this says. This person gets to tell everyone else what the President intended— apparently no matter what he might say.
And then, on page 45, the Conservative Takeover Plan emphatically declares: “No Director should be chosen who is . . . not aggressive in wielding the tool on behalf of the President’s agenda, or who is unable to defend the power against attacks from Congress.”
Notice that this language does not say the Director must be only committed to defending this “Keeper of Commander’s Intent” power against Democrats. It says “against attacks from Congress.” NotRepublican-controlled or Democrat-controlled. Just “Congress.” Someone is silently preparing to take over the United States of America.
While the plan repeats this common refrain throughout— “the President’s agenda,” page 45 contains an ominous provision about how power should, in actuality, be wielded:
“The two most important offices for moving OMB at the will of a Director [not the President] are the Budget Review Division (BRD) and the Office of General Counsel (OGC).”
Assume for a moment that a president is old and infirm, cognitively deficient, unable to recall details with any degree of precision, prone to discernible psychological meltdowns, and completely unpredictable— the Director of the OMB is empowered, perhaps more so than the Vice President, to insulate him from an Amendment 25 challenge by taking control of the President’s ‘air-traffic control system,’ and executing the [President’s] policy agenda throughout the bureaucracy.
Although there is so much more to be concerned about on the topic of the OMB, think about this: Under Project 2025, “[t]he Director must ensure the appointment of a General Counsel who is respected yet creative and fearless in his or her ability to challenge legal precedents that serve to protect the status quo.” That’s a lot of power.
In this nation’s legal system, there is a principle that requires judges to respect the precedent established by prior (higher court) decisions on similar cases. It’s called “stare decisis,” or “let the decision stand.” Stare decisis provides some degree of predictability in the law. For example, everyone knows that Brown vs the Board of Education outlawed “separate but equal” in our nation’s school systems. That case established a precedent that other courts are bound to follow. But under Project 2025, any General Counsel “appointed” by the Director would be not just empowered, but expected, to challenge the legal precedent that establishes unitary school systems as a matter of status quo.
To make matters worse, Project 2025 seems to contain no restrictions on the nature of the legal precedents the OMB General Counsel could challenge. Everything could be up for MAGA challenge.
Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s pick to direct the Office of Management and Budget, is a co-author of Project 2025. Surprise!!
“Danger, Will Robinson. Danger.”
And that’s just the first 50 pages or so. (Download Project 2025 here.) I’ll let you know what else I find.
