An ex-MAGA activist warns “no civic savior is coming” as Donald Trump’s cognitive decline becomes undeniable

What if Donald Trump defeats President Biden and takes control of the White House in 2025? He has already announced his plans to become the country’s first dictator, and to launch a reign of terror and revenge against his so-called enemies. As detailed in documents such as Project 2025, Agenda 47, and elsewhere, the infrastructure is being created right now to put Trump’s neofascist plans to end multiracial pluralistic democracy in effect on “day one." The so-called resistance will not have the courtesy of ramping up or mobilizing to stop Dictator Trump’s onslaught. It will be a “shock and awe” campaign visited upon the American people.

Dictator Trump’s reign of terror will be made even worse by the fact that as shown during recent speeches, interviews, and at other events he appears to be encountering severe difficulties in cognition, language, and memory.

In a series of recent conversations with me here at Salon, Dr. John Gartner, a prominent psychologist and contributor to the bestselling book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” has issued this warning: “Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented. In fact, we are seeing the opposite among too many in the news media, the political leaders and among the public. There is also this focus on Biden’s gaffes or other things that are well within the normal limits of aging. By comparison, Trump appears to be showing gross signs of dementia. This is a tale of two brains. Biden’s brain is aging. Trump’s brain is dementing.”

  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Trumpism is not going to be defeated by voting at this point. Pelosi: “US needs a ‘strong’ Republican Party.” Dems are fine with the good cop, bad cop dynamic.

    • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The country genuinely does need a competitive second party.

      Everyone blames Democrats for the lack of choice in candidates, while the other guys are nominating a twice impeached, adjudicated rapist and insurrection supporter with ninety one criminal indictments and multiple pending civil suits.

      I haven’t had a candidate come out of the GOP worthy of consideration in my entire lifetime. At one point, they were the party of not only Lincoln but folks like Eisenhower.

        • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          2016 was 8 years ago, and I think it’s rather weird and conspiratorial to blame Hillary for Trump in the first place. She might’ve had a preferred opponent but she certainly didn’t control the GOP. She barely controlled the DNC. She had a hard fought primary with Bernie who wasn’t even a member of the party, and had a relatively low national profile before the election.

          This points at exactly what I’m talking about above. To hear you tell it, Democrats are somehow the only people with agency in the entire political landscape.

          • olivebranch@lemmy.ca
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            6 months ago

            Politicians have no real agency, it is the rich that control the entire political landscape. They liked Hilary and Trump, and they told them to support elevate each other so that no matter who wins, they get their way. They do this in every election, same major donors fund both sides.

            Democrats and Republicans are just puppets that pretend they are against each other, but in reality they are on the same side working for the same employers and getting votes by bashing each other.

            • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              So you had a long think on this response and decided that your take that Hillary was responsible for Trump was too nuanced? 😆

              There are material differences between Democrats and Republicans and acting like there aren’t serves nobody (except perhaps Republicans).

  • olivebranch@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    Wait a minute, if we get rid of the Republican Party, wouldn’t a two party system become a one party system? So if Trump is elected, end of democracy, if Republican party is destroyed, also end of democracy? Is there no way out? End of democracy either way?

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      No more than the death of the whigs. A dead Republican Party creates a vacuum for either the democrats to split or a third party to ascend

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          We’ve had party changes and party restructures before. It’s not unheard of. There is the third option of the republicans needing to restructure and hide for a while like they did after the new deal.

          • olivebranch@lemmy.ca
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            6 months ago

            So in the mean time, before this restructure, if it happens at all, there would be a period where one party would have unlimited power? Sounds like very risky, if it gets to that point, they can use that power to stay in power forever. I think we need ranked choice voting before we get rid of republicans or some sort of direct democracy.

            • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              I fully agree with tanked choice, and want to pressure politicians towards it. Hell I’ve been parliament curious lately. But I also understand the difference between realistic and unrealistic worries. The democrats are a catch all party with less cohesion than would be necessary for a tyrannical single party. And it’s not unlimited power, there are usually a few independents in congress. If the republicans collapse we’ll either have a replacement party within like an election or two or we’ll have a lot of independents very quickly.

              I’m not saying that a single party isn’t bad. My home state is so gerrymandered that republicans brazenly defy the will of the citizens. Like we added abortion to our constitution and legalized marijuana by ballot initiative and the republicans in charge promptly considered banning abortion anyways and have been fighting over how best to gut the marijuana legislation we voted on since. But there’s a huge difference between gerrymandering and other means by which a single party holds control and a major party collapsing because it’s become so toxic it can no longer win

              • olivebranch@lemmy.ca
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                6 months ago

                honestly I wouldn’t risk it to wait for an election or two. Once you have complete power you can use it to stay in power, gut everyone from the party that is not on your side. It is such a big risk to have a one party system, even for a short while, that risking your vote now for the third party is actually lower.

    • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The two party system isn’t the rule as much as it is a symptom of our winner-takes-all voting system. In the event that the Republican party loses significant support from voters, the Democratic party would surely split into two polar factions.

  • zaphod@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    Never ceases to amaze me how often I see this canard:

    both parties share culpability in creating the opening for MAGA and Trump

    So Dems, who are never elected to represent those poor, forgotten souls in the rust belt or former coal mining towns, and therefore are not in a position to actually do anything to help them, are somehow culpable for those folks, what, voting against their interests?

    Fuck off with this both sides enlightened centrist bullshit. Folks in Virginia and Alabama voted for right wingers who fucked them over, then those people successfully channeled the resulting anger and resentment at the “establishment”.

    It’s the political consequences of starve the beast politics.

      • zaphod@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        Cool, so Hillary and the DNC were such incredible political masterminds that they single-handedly brainwashed GOP supporters into nominating Trump. And all the voters then picked him because, I assume, the DNC also tricked them into tacking toward fascism through, I guess, sheer force of political will.

        Truly amazing.

        Or course, it makes sense. Certainly when I think of the DNC and the Dems more broadly, I think of an incredibly effective organization with an all-powerful and unstoppable mind control apparatus demonstrating unparalleled powers to manipulate an unwitting electorate in order to achieve their nefarious goals.

        And the GOP and their voters? Obviously simply sheep, following the lead of their Democratic puppet masters.

        I’d call it a left-wing conspiracy theory, but if there’s anything I know about the Dems, it’s that they’re such incredible strategic politicians that this can’t be anything but the stone cold truth. Right?

        Certainly that explains why, after the 2016 election, all those poor GOP voters woke up, confused and hung over, and realized what they’d done while under the spell of those nefarious Democrats, and why in subsequent years they rejected Trump wholeheartedly and certainly never goose stepped right along behind him.

        • olivebranch@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          No, the rich corporations funded both and told them to support each other. It is not just a conspiracy theory, there are cryptographicaly signed emails about this, for which journalists when to jail for publishing. There are public records of major donors funding both sides. They are all puppets that play in theater of politics to pretend to be enemies while working for the same employer doing the same thing and getting votes by pretending they are against each other.

  • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    If we seek out ways to ‘kill’ that ‘political party’ I urge we give no mercy, no quarter, and we finish the damn job.

        • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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          6 months ago

          Although I find the meme hilarious, this makes perfect sense. That’s something I assumed as well. The pommel was likely weighted and heavy, and the shock of it coming at you and the sudden ear-ringing “CLANG” of it bouncing off your helmet was probably just wtf-disorienting enough to allow your opponent into your blind spot or deadly proximity. Ouch.

          I’ve practiced something similar in martial arts, where you throw your hands wildly toward the face for a half second and take advantage of the blinking flinch for a sweep or grab.

          Thanks for sharing!

  • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Again for the chuds and shills in the back:

    “Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented. In fact, we are seeing the opposite among too many in the news media, the political leaders and among the public. There is also this focus on Biden’s gaffes or other things that are well within the normal limits of aging. By comparison, Trump appears to be showing gross signs of dementia. This is a tale of two brains. Biden’s brain is aging. Trump’s brain is dementing.

    And let’s be honest, Trump has shown signs of dementia since the beginning of his first term. It was obvious when hearing his communication when he was younger.