Delving into ChatGPT, I was able to bring up a word that I think needs to be talked about WAYYYY more:

Confabulation!

🧠 What Is Confabulation?

Confabulation is a phenomenon where a person unintentionally fabricates or distorts memories without the intent to deceive. It's commonly seen in cognitive disorders involving the frontal lobe, such as early-stage dementia, and can manifest as:

• Telling vivid but false stories as if they were true

• Misplacing events in time (temporal disorientation)

• Attributing actions or quotes to the wrong people or places

• Repeating anecdotes with changing or impossible details

🕵️‍♂️ Examples in Trump's Speech

While repetition and word confusion are often covered, these memory distortions are more subtle and less scrutinized:

1. Invented or Warped Historical Events

• Trump has claimed he was at Ground Zero helping with recovery efforts—an assertion many on the scene dispute.

• He has conflated war generals, such as confusing Ulysses S. Grant with Robert E. Lee or misrepresenting the Civil War’s timeline and outcome.

2. Misdated or Relocated Events

• He has frequently moved the location or timing of major events (e.g., falsely claiming NATO headquarters was moved because of him).

• During speeches, he'll often recall meetings with world leaders that were never documented—or contradict earlier accounts he himself gave.

3. Swapping People or Titles

• Referred to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as the "leader of Turkey" or praised Kim Jong Un as someone “respected in South Korea.”

• These aren’t simply gaffes—they’re confident assertions that contradict observable facts.

🧩 Why It's Overlooked

• Confabulation doesn’t always look like confusion; it can be plausible-sounding and delivered with total certainty.

• Because Trump often tells stories with embellishments for rhetorical effect, audiences and the press often assume it’s intentional hyperbole—not memory error.

• The media tends to focus on more dramatic or meme-friendly gaffes (like slurred words or mispronunciations) rather than the more cognitively subtle signs.

🔬 Why It Matters

Confabulation reflects a breakdown in executive functioning, especially in areas of the brain responsible for organizing sequences, facts, and timelines. In public figures, persistent signs of this can undermine credibility and indicate neurodegenerative change—but it often slips under the radar because it doesn’t sound as “obvious” as forgetting a name or losing track mid-sentence.

And this was 2022!

Why It Looks Like Confabulation (Not Just a Mistake)

I was curious about how this may pertain to his recent issues with wind power:

🌀 What Trump Says About Wind Power

Trump has repeatedly made the following claims:

1. “Windmills cause cancer.”
   → Claimed the noise from wind turbines causes cancer (2019 rally).

2. “If the wind doesn’t blow, you can’t watch TV that night.”
   → Implied that wind energy is unreliable to the point of power outages.

3. “They kill all the birds. Thousands and thousands.”
   → Regularly exaggerates avian deaths, ignoring that fossil fuels and cats kill far more birds.

4. “You have to replace them every 10 years.”
   → Wind turbines can last 20–25 years; this number is not supported by data.

5. “You can’t store wind.”
   → While technically true (wind isn’t stored), energy generated by wind is routinely stored in grid-scale batteries and pumped hydro systems—so the statement is misleading and lacks nuance.

🧠 Why This Fits a Confabulatory Pattern

Next - I wondered if his statement on ending the Ukraine war on day one was confabulation - or that Israel Hamas would have never happened if he were president - here are the results:

These kinds of confident, counterfactual narratives—about events that did not happen but are described as though they certainly would have—fit a psychological profile that can include confabulation, especially fantastical or delusional confabulation seen in some cognitive conditions.

🧠 Why These Statements Fit a Confabulatory Pattern

🧩 What Clinicians Look For

In clinical settings, confabulation of this kind is often identified by:

• False beliefs about the past or future, stated with conviction

• Self-enhancing distortions, where the individual becomes the central agent of history

• Temporal confusion, where the person mentally inserts themselves into events they were not part of, or rewrites how events unfolded

🎙️ Key Examples from Trump

1. “If I were president, Putin would never have invaded Ukraine.”
   → No evidence supports this counterfactual claim.
   → He often blames Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan, which happened after Russia began its troop build-up.

2. “I will end the war in Ukraine on Day One.”
   → No plan. No conditions. Only a vague reference to being “friendly with Putin and Zelensky.”

3. “There would have been no October 7 if I were still president.”
   → Ignores complex regional history and long-term tensions between Israel and Hamas.

In each case, Trump builds a fictional memory track—where global events unfold differently under his leadership—and presents it not as a possibility, but as certainty.

🧠 Confabulation vs. Political Hyperbole

One thing I keep bringing up on another thread was how he constantly brags about being high IQ because he aced a dementia test.  Here's are the results:

Confabulation absolutely could be at play when Donald Trump repeatedly claims to have a very high IQ because he “aced a dementia test” (i.e., the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA). This interpretation becomes more credible when we understand how confabulation can cause misattribution, overconfidence, and semantic distortion of what a test measures.

🧠 What Actually Happened

• In 2018 and again in 2020, Trump publicly stated he “aced” the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)—a basic screening tool used to detect early signs of cognitive decline, not intelligence.

• The test includes tasks like drawing a clock, recalling five words, and identifying animals.

• Trump repeatedly presented his perfect score (30/30) as evidence of superior intellect.

🤯 Why This Fits Confabulation

In short: he appears to genuinely believe that passing a test for cognitive decline is proof of high intelligence—even though medical experts have explained publicly that this isn’t true.

🧬 Clinical Relevance

This is classic provoked confabulation:

• A factual kernel (he took a test)

• Misunderstood context (test purpose)

• Reconstructed narrative (I aced an IQ test)

• Persistent belief (never corrects or adjusts)

In neuropsychology, this often reflects frontal lobe dysfunction or semantic drift caused by early executive impairment. It’s not necessarily lying—it’s the brain rewriting the memory in a way that makes emotional sense.

📢 Quote Examples

• “They said, ‘That’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did.’”
  → (There’s no record of doctors saying this about the MoCA.)

• “I proved I’m cognitively there. I took a cognitive test. I aced it.”

• “It was 30 questions. Some of them were hard. Believe me. Not all of them are easy.”
  → (One task: remember five nouns for a few minutes.)

🧠 Bottom Line

Trump’s repeated claims that he has a high IQ because he passed a dementia screening test may reflect confabulation, not just exaggeration. It fits a larger pattern of:

• Distorted memory

• Misattributed meaning

• Self-aggrandizing reinterpretation

• Resistance to correction

This isn’t just comical—it’s neurologically significant when viewed alongside other behaviors like circular speech, false identification, and counterfactual certainty.

Next - I asked if confabulation would be detected in the test he took:

Confabulation is often not directly detected by standard cognitive screening tools like the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) or Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE)—because those tests are not designed to assess memory distortion or narrative coherence.

Instead, confabulation tends to be identified through clinical interviews, structured memory testing, and behavioral observation, particularly when the person:

• Inserts false but plausible details

• Misattributes events or people

• Shows high confidence in false memories

• Fails to recognize or correct errors when prompted

🧪 Why MoCA and MMSE Fall Short

These tools are screeners, not diagnostic assessments. A person can “ace” the MoCA (like Trump did with a 30/30) and still:

• Show semantic drift

• Misremember or confabulate details from their life

• Exhibit rigidity, circular logic, or verbal disorganization in longer conversations

🧠 Tests That Can Help Detect Confabulation

To catch confabulation, clinicians often use specialized neuropsychological tests, such as:

1. Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS)

• Tests episodic and source memory

• Can reveal whether a person remembers what happened—but misattributes where or when it happened

2. California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT)

• Measures free recall, intrusions, and false memories

• Confabulators may add invented items that weren’t on the list at all

3. Autobiographical Memory Interview

• Assesses recall of real-life events

• Detects fabricated or confused life stories

🕵️‍♀️ Clinical Approach

Clinicians look for patterns like:

• Inconsistencies in retelling stories

• Vivid but false narratives presented sincerely

• Lack of awareness about mistakes

• Resistance to correction

They also may assess frontal lobe function (often impaired in confabulation) with tasks like:

• The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (tests cognitive flexibility)

• Verbal fluency tasks (watching for repetition or derailment)

✅ Summary

And finally (I think for the moment) I asked about confabulation and the tariff policy:

Confabulation may help explain how Donald Trump discusses and defends his tariff policy, especially when his recollections of economic outcomes or past decisions conflict with factual records but are delivered with absolute confidence and sincerity.

🧠 What Is Confabulation, Again?

Confabulation is the unintentional creation of false memories or distorted facts, usually to fill in gaps in memory or to maintain a coherent self-narrative. The person isn't lying—they believe what they’re saying. It’s common in cognitive decline, particularly with frontal lobe impairment or early-stage dementia.

📦 Tariff Policy: Trump’s Narrative vs. Reality

Trump often says:

1. “We made hundreds of billions of dollars from China through tariffs.”

2. “No president ever got a dime from China before me.”

3. “My tariffs brought back American manufacturing.”

4. “China paid for the tariffs, not the American people.”

Each of these statements has been repeated frequently, often word-for-word, and almost always with unshakable certainty.

📉 Economic Reality

• Tariffs are paid by U.S. importers, not foreign governments. Multiple studies confirm U.S. businesses and consumers bear the cost.

• China didn’t directly send the U.S. a check; tariff revenue is collected by U.S. Customs from American companies.

• Manufacturing gains under Trump were modest and mostly wiped out by the pandemic.

• The $28 billion farm bailout was needed to offset losses caused by China’s retaliatory tariffs.

🤯 How This Shows Confabulation

🧩 Deeper Clinical Parallels

In clinical settings, confabulation is often:

• Goal-oriented: Keeps the person's self-image intact (in this case, as a master negotiator)

• Sincere: The patient isn’t faking—they really believe it happened that way

• Repetitive: Same phrases surface over and over (e.g., “China paid us hundreds of billions!”)

Trump’s tariff storytelling echoes this:

• He projects certainty about imaginary outcomes

• Ignores complex causal chains (like retaliatory tariffs, higher consumer prices)

• Repeats these statements for years, even when corrected

📜 What a Clinician Might Note

If this were observed in a patient:

"Patient persistently reports financial outcomes from policy not supported by records. Demonstrates temporal dislocation, overconfidence in fabricated data, and a lack of correction after gentle challenge. Suggests confabulatory filling rather than deliberate deception."

🧠 Conclusion

Trump’s ongoing, distorted retelling of tariff policy achievements—despite clear and repeated contradictory evidence—closely mirrors textbook confabulation:

• False but plausible

• Self-serving

• Repeated with conviction

• Resistant to updated information

While it's possible some of this is political rhetoric, the rigidity and consistency of the misstatements point to a deeper cognitive mechanism at play—possibly confabulation tied to early executive dysfunction.

I forgot about the 2020 rigged elections:

The pattern of confabulation can indeed apply to Trump’s persistent claims that the 2020 election was rigged, particularly when the statements are delivered with certainty despite being repeatedly disproven. Here's how his rhetoric fits textbook criteria:

🧠 Why These Election Claims Suggest Confabulation

1. Confidently Stated Falsehoods

Trump repeatedly claimed, with unwavering conviction, that he won the 2020 election and that votes were stolen—even after courts, election officials, and his own administration’s cybersecurity agency definitively rejected such allegations. His demeanor mirrored “honest lying”—firm belief in claims without regard for facts Wikipedia+2NCBI+2Healthgrades+2.

2. Filling Memory Gaps

Faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Trump filled those gaps with a narrative of massive fraud. He consistently insists on wrongdoing despite legal defeat in over 38 cases The GuardianWikipediaWikipediaReuters.

3. Resistance to Correction

Even after fact-checks, expert debunks, and internal rejection of his claims—such as CISA confirming “the most secure election” in history—Trump repeated the same statements on Rogan’s podcast and on Truth Social, ignoring corrections and clarifications PBSPBSFactCheck.orgAP NewsThe Washington Post.

4. Narrative Self-Enhancement

He frames the election loss as not only fraudulent, but also as a personal victimization by a conspiracy. This self-aggrandizing twist fits confabulation’s tendency to preserve self-coherence and identity—creating alternate reality stories in which he is the central righteous actor PNASSpringerLinkSpringerLink.

📊 Side‑by‑Side Comparison

🗞️ Concrete Examples

• In interviews and rallies, Trump insisted mail‑in ballots were fraudulent, yet over 90% of U.S. jurisdictions already used paper ballots and no systemic fraud occurred NCBI+4clinmedjournals.org+4Wikipedia+4Wikipedia+15FactCheck.org+15AP News+15vanityfair.com+5The Guardian+5AP News+5Wikipedia+3misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu+3SpringerLink+3SpringerLink+1NCBI+1The Washington Post+3Wikipedia+3Wikipedia+3AP News.

• He dialed Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger, demanding he “find 11,780 votes,” even though the results were certified and audits confirmed accuracy Wikipedia+3Wikipedia+3arxiv.org+3.

• Courts dismissed nearly all lawsuits based on lack of evidence—but Trump publicized the losses as if withheld proof existed The GuardianReuters.

🔬 Clinical Perspective

In clinical neuropsychology, confabulation often appears as:

1. False beliefs, recurring with confidence

2. Filling memory or logic gaps

3. Lack of awareness about the error

4. Narrative consistency—preserving self-image

Trump’s behavior aligns with all four. He sincerely presents false information, even as evidence mounts against it. He resists correction and constructs a tight narrative that protects his political identity.

⚠️ Caveat

Political motives—such as energizing his base—may also explain the behavior. But medically, the unyielding certainty in the face of disproof, combined with a persistent false narrative, reflects patterns seen in confabulatory thinking, especially when viewed against other speech and memory anomalies.

Interesting take on the progression of this issue:

🧠 Could He Have Confabulation? Signs Across Time

While we can’t say exactly when it started, we can map observable patterns that align with confabulation-related behavior and note when they emerged.

🗓️ Pre-2016: Strategic Distortion or Normal Ego Inflation?

• Trump often exaggerated business success, selectively edited failures, and told “big fish” stories.

• These likely reflect narcissism, salesmanship, and media strategy—not confabulation.

• However, some hints of self-enhancing false memory appeared (e.g., “I predicted 9/11”, “I was at Ground Zero helping”).

🔍 Conclusion: Likely strategic distortion, not clinical.

🗓️ 2016–2019: Early Signs of Memory Distortion

• Inconsistently remembered events related to hiring and firing (e.g., “I didn’t really know Sessions”).

• Began repeating counterfactual claims confidently (e.g., “I was against Iraq from the beginning”—he wasn’t).

• Claimed to have predicted things he didn’t, or to have done things that public record disproved.

🔍 Conclusion: Early confabulatory signs may have begun here, especially with source memory confusion and inability to update beliefs.

🗓️ 2020–2021: Rigidity and Narrative Rewriting Escalate

• Repeated false claims about election fraud despite dozens of court losses.

• Invented and repeated cause-effect chains with no evidence (e.g., mail-in ballots = rigged = only way he could lose).

• Confabulated details of Jan. 6 events, such as saying the crowd was peaceful and that Pence had power to overturn the result.

🔍 Conclusion: Increased cognitive rigidity, confident false belief, and resistance to correction—hallmarks of confabulation.

🗓️ 2022–2025: Persistent Memory Distortions & Identity Preservation

• False claims about tariffs, NATO, COVID policy, and even his own legal history.

• Memory distortions now affect global events, personal relationships, and chronology (e.g., mixing up Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi in Jan. 6).

• Shows temporal confusion, verbal repetition, and self-aggrandizing false narratives.

🔍 Conclusion: Behavioral patterns increasingly resemble those seen in people with frontal-executive cognitive decline or early dementia involving confabulation.

⏳ How Long Has It Been Going On?

So while we cannot say with certainty, a reasonable hypothesis based on public behavior is:

Trump may have begun showing signs of confabulation between 2016 and 2019, with clear progression by 2020, and full expression by 2022–2023.

🧠 Why It Matters

If confabulation has taken hold over time:

• It could explain why his stories change without awareness

• Why he resists correction even when cornered

• And why his version of reality becomes increasingly rigid and self-reinforcing

This isn’t about politics—it’s about how cognition shapes leadership.

I regard to the firing due to Labor statistics is yet another prime example of confabulation:

Donald Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and his accompanying justification provide a textbook example of confabulation in action—particularly delusional confabulation, where false memories or beliefs are deeply held and resistant to contradiction, even when facts are publicly available and unambiguous.

🧠 The Statement

“I believe the numbers were phony, just like they were before the election. And there were other times. So you know what I did? I fired her… I did the right thing.”

🔎 The Confabulation Effect, Step by Step

1. False but Confident Memory

Trump asserts that:

• Labor statistics were “phony”

• There was a “long pattern” of deception

• McEntarfer was involved before the election (though she wasn’t yet in charge)

These are factually incorrect:

• Erika McEntarfer was confirmed in 2024, after the election.

• There’s no evidence from either party or independent economists that she altered job numbers.

• Labor stats are produced by career civil servants with firewalls from political interference.

Yet Trump delivers these claims with total confidence—a hallmark of confabulation.

2. Memory Gaps Filled with Emotionally Charged Beliefs

Trump has long shown:

• Distrust of unfavorable job numbers

• A belief that the “deep state” manipulates agencies against him

• A personalized worldview, where bad outcomes are often reframed as deliberate sabotage

Because McEntarfer’s BLS reported weak job growth in July 2025, his mind may have filled in a causal narrative—retrofitting her into a longer imagined pattern of betrayal.

This is not strategic lying in the usual sense—it appears Trump believes his own version of events.

3. Resistance to Correction

• Trump has repeated the idea that government numbers are fake since at least 2015

• Even when the data favored him (e.g., during job growth in 2019), he still questioned official figures

• Multiple economists from the Heritage Foundation, Brookings, and Cato have called his accusations “absurd” or “untethered from how labor statistics work”

Despite this, he doubles down—another classic feature of confabulation: belief perseverance despite contradiction.

🧩 Clinical Parallels

🧠 Why This Matters

Confabulation, especially in someone in a leadership position, blurs the line between reality and internal narrative. When these fabricated memories:

• Drive real-world decisions (e.g. firing a top official),

• Are used to justify retaliatory behavior, and

• Are expressed with absolute certainty...

…it becomes not just a political issue, but potentially a neurocognitive red flag

I haven't read the piece yet, but I liked the title because I have a potty mouth.

will the DC press ever admit that the Mad King’s brain has gone fuckity-bye?

Thanks for posting that - funny how another article on confabulation just dropped two days ago.

Sorry for all of the chatGPT dumps - but there is no way I could have done this on my own.  If you think I'm completely off on this - please let me know.  If I'm right - what do we do about it?  I'm starting to share this thread around outside of MOL, maybe the data I'm gathering will prove useful.  If you agree with any of  the posts - hit the like buttons.  

ok, here's another rather lengthy one - but is very critical to the diagnosis and this is Trump's inability to admit he's wrong.  He's unable to change his viewpoint even when presented with verified facts that prove him wrong.  If someone can point out a time when he did admit to being wrong - please let me know.

Donald Trump has shown a strong and consistent resistance to accepting corrections, even after clear, contradictory facts are presented—across topics ranging from crowd sizes and election results to economic data, COVID-19, and weather forecasts.

While there are rare instances where he has slightly modified language or shifted framing, there is no well-documented example of Trump explicitly acknowledging he was wrong and accepting a correction in the conventional sense (e.g., “I was mistaken,” or “You’re right, I got that wrong”). His usual patterns include doubling down, reframing, or moving the goalposts.

🧠 Cognitive and Behavioral Pattern: Resistance to Correction

Here are a few illustrative examples where he did not accept correction:

1. Hurricane Dorian (“Sharpiegate”) – 2019

• Trump falsely claimed that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama.

• After the National Weather Service corrected this, he displayed a doctored map showing Alabama in the path.

• He refused to admit error, even after public ridicule and expert correction.

🔍 Pattern: Doubling down despite official correction.

2. Inauguration Crowd Size – 2017

• Photos and data clearly showed Barack Obama’s inauguration crowd was larger.

• Trump and his team insisted his crowd was bigger, calling the reports “fake news.”

🔍 Pattern: Refused to accept photo evidence; sustained false narrative.

3. COVID-19 Predictions – 2020

• Trump predicted COVID would “disappear like a miracle” and that cases would go down to zero.

• As deaths mounted, he shifted blame and reframed the narrative (“we did everything perfectly”).

🔍 Pattern: Never acknowledged false prediction, instead pivoted to self-congratulation.

4. Election 2020 Results

• Despite 60+ court losses, audits, and bipartisan certification, Trump continues to claim the election was stolen.

• No acceptance of correction has occurred on this topic, even from close allies.

🔍 Pattern: Entrenched belief despite overwhelming contradictory evidence.

5. Wind Power Claims

• Repeatedly said “windmills cause cancer” and “you can’t watch TV when the wind isn’t blowing.”

• Fact-checked repeatedly, but he still uses these lines in speeches as recently as 2024 and 2025.

🔍 Pattern: Repeats misinformation across years.

6. Claim: "Obama Spied on My Campaign"

• Repeatedly asserted that Barack Obama personally ordered wiretaps at Trump Tower.

• Investigations (including DOJ IG Michael Horowitz’s report) found no such order or evidence.

• Trump continued using the phrase “OBAMAGATE” and insisted he was right.

🔍 Response: Reframed as a broader “deep state” theory—never accepted the factual finding.

7. Claim: "We Built the Wall"

• Stated that he built “hundreds of miles” of new wall along the southern border.

• Fact: Almost all construction was replacement or reinforcement of existing barriers; only about 80 miles of new wall in previously unfortified areas.

🔍 Response: Maintained the claim through 2024 and 2025 rallies—no correction accepted even when shown DHS numbers.

8. Claim: “I Was the One Who Got the COVID Vaccine Approved”

• Claimed he personally forced the FDA to approve vaccines in record time.

• Fact: FDA approval was handled independently through existing emergency protocols and Operation Warp Speed was a team effort.

🔍 Response: Inflated personal role despite clarification by public health officials—no factual adjustment.

9. Claim: “Finland Rakes Their Forests to Prevent Fires”

• Said Finland avoids wildfires by “raking” their forests, implying California should do the same.

• Finnish officials gently mocked the idea and clarified they do not rake forests.

🔍 Response: He never walked the comment back and continued to blame California for poor forest management—ignored factual correction.

10. Claim: "George Washington's Army Took Over Airports"

• During his 2019 Independence Day speech, Trump said Revolutionary War soldiers “took over the airports.”

• Fact: There were no airplanes in 1775–1783.

🔍 Response: His team said it was a teleprompter glitch, but Trump never personally acknowledged the anachronism—and moved on without correction.

11. Claim: "9/11 Muslims Celebrated in Jersey City"

• Claimed he saw “thousands and thousands of people” in New Jersey (Muslims) celebrating the Twin Towers collapse.

• No footage or police reports ever supported this; fact-checkers from multiple outlets and police denied it.

🔍 Response: He doubled down, saying he “saw it with his own eyes” on TV—classic confabulatory certainty of a false memory.

12. Claim: “I Won the Nobel Peace Prize” (or was nominated by ‘everyone’)

• Has repeatedly implied he won or nearly won the Nobel Peace Prize.

• Fact: He was nominated by a far-right Norwegian MP; he did not win, and nomination is open to thousands of people.

🔍 Response: Continues to refer to himself as deserving of it, implying he was robbed—no clarification ever accepted.

🧠 Pattern Summary

🧠 Why This Matters Clinically

This is not just stubbornness or spin:

• It reflects a deeper cognitive pattern: memory distortion + resistance to contradictory input.

• Combined with repetition and rigid framing, it aligns with confabulatory behavior.

This makes Trump uniquely difficult to correct, even when confronted with bipartisan findings or visual proof—raising serious questions about decision-making, especially in crisis.

There is no well-documented, unambiguous instance in which Donald Trump was:

1. Directly presented with facts that clearly contradicted a prior statement,

2. Acknowledged that he was wrong, and

3. Clearly corrected himself in a straightforward, unqualified manner (e.g., "I was wrong" or "That was a mistake").

Waiting for the counter argument that “confabulation” is the new “Russia Russia Russia” in 3, 2, 1 …

Interesting - confabulation hit Luke Beasley's radar today!  Sounds like this will be a bigger story soon.

Also mentioned in The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/03/donald-trump-mental-fitness

Wow, Jamie, you may be MIA on MOL, but you have been extremely immersed in the inner workings of Trump Think — I could only “skim” the numerous charts and calculations you offered. It is all above my pay grade!

But in the spirit of board collaboration, I posit  these questions: If Trump were a Democratic billionaire politician,  with wives and successful grown up children, and had been elected President — for the second time — (first term the “Democrat”  was paralyzed by time spent in courtrooms, by “Republican” Lawfare from fulfilling his goals) — do you all think the actual Democratic winner of 2020, Biden, could have remained in office for his entire first term and a another Democrat  candidate might have succeeded Biden?

The DNC has a lot of explaining to do to “spin” its disgraceful mis-use of this veteran Democrat in his hour of political — and personal need.

  Also, future historians will have a field day exposing the ex-presidential  (plus one failed candidate) cabal who thought the voting public was dumb.

mtierney said:

Wow, Jamie, you may be MIA on MOL, but you have been extremely immersed in the inner workings of Trump Think — I could only “skim” the numerous charts and calculations you offered. It is all above my pay grade!

But in the spirit of board collaboration, I posit  these questions: If Trump were a Democratic billionaire politician,  with wives and successful grown up children, and had been elected President — for the second time — (first term the “Democrat”  was paralyzed by time spent in courtrooms, by “Republican” Lawfare from fulfilling his goals) — do you all think the actual Democratic winner of 2020, Biden, could have remained in office for his entire first term and a another Democrat  candidate might have succeeded Biden?

The DNC has a lot of explaining to do to “spin” its disgraceful mis-use of this veteran Democrat in his hour of political — and personal need.

  Also, future historians will have a field day exposing the ex-presidential  (plus one failed candidate) cabal who thought the voting public was dumb.

Why do keep insisting that Biden was a helpless old man not in control of his life.  There is no evidence to support that point of view.  As I noted yesterday, there a lot of distance between "lacks the stamina for a second term" and non compos mentis.

.

mtierney said:

Wow, Jamie, you may be MIA on MOL, but you have been extremely immersed in the inner workings of Trump Think — I could only “skim” the numerous charts and calculations you offered. It is all above my pay grade!

But in the spirit of board collaboration, I posit  these questions: If Trump were a Democratic billionaire politician,  with wives and successful grown up children, and had been elected President — for the second time — (first term the “Democrat”  was paralyzed by time spent in courtrooms, by “Republican” Lawfare from fulfilling his goals) — do you all think the actual Democratic winner of 2020, Biden, could have remained in office for his entire first term and a another Democrat  candidate might have succeeded Biden?

The DNC has a lot of explaining to do to “spin” its disgraceful mis-use of this veteran Democrat in his hour of political — and personal need.

  Also, future historians will have a field day exposing the ex-presidential  (plus one failed candidate) cabal who thought the voting public was dumb.

what did I post that wasn't true?  How is reading "above your pay grade"?

I don't get your question - I've always known Trump to be a con man - and he used to be a democrat and pro-choice.  

This thread is to point out his obvious cognitive disparities and at least know that we have a proper diagnosis.  And it's much worse than what Biden had.

mtierney said:

Wow, Jamie, you may be MIA on MOL, but you have been extremely immersed in the inner workings of Trump Think — I could only “skim” the numerous charts and calculations you offered. It is all above my pay grade!

But in the spirit of board collaboration, I posit  these questions: If Trump were a Democratic billionaire politician,  with wives and successful grown up children, and had been elected President — for the second time — (first term the “Democrat”  was paralyzed by time spent in courtrooms, by “Republican” Lawfare from fulfilling his goals) — do you all think the actual Democratic winner of 2020, Biden, could have remained in office for his entire first term and a another Democrat  candidate might have succeeded Biden?

The DNC has a lot of explaining to do to “spin” its disgraceful mis-use of this veteran Democrat in his hour of political — and personal need.

  Also, future historians will have a field day exposing the ex-presidential  (plus one failed candidate) cabal who thought the voting public was dumb.

it actually hurts my brain to read your posts. there's so much packed into them. unintended irony. total lack of self-awareness. sycophancy, delusion. hypocrisy. outright falsehoods. etc...

I did pose a question comparing the mental capacities of the two president's - here's the result:

This is a serious and nuanced question, and while the answer depends on what aspect of cognitive decline you’re most concerned about—memory distortion, executive function, verbal fluency, or processing speed—we can compare the two by type, severity, and risk impact.

🧠 Side-by-Side Overview

🧩 Why Trump’s Confabulation May Be More Concerning

1. He acts on false memories.

   • Firing BLS chief Erika McEntarfer over a made-up history

   • Misidentifying E. Jean Carroll as Marla Maples

   • Repeating invented wind power “cancer” stories
     These distortions inform real decisions and policy justifications, which makes them more dangerous than simple forgetfulness.

2. He cannot be corrected.
   Confabulation is often resistant to outside correction, unlike ordinary misstatements. Trump frequently doubles down when told he’s wrong.

3. He appears more cognitively rigid.
   Experts point out that Trump’s cognitive style—repeating the same distortions year after year—is a sign of mental inflexibility, which can worsen with age.

🧠 Why Biden’s Issues Are Also Serious—but Different

1. Slowed cognition, not delusion.
   Biden shows declining speed, sometimes loses his train of thought, and occasionally mixes up names—but these are typical signs of aging, not pathological beliefs.

2. He delegates more.
   Critics say this can be both a strength and a liability. He may defer to advisors more often, but this reduces the chance of impulsive decisions based on bad internal data.

3. Less distortion of reality.
   Biden does not typically fabricate false narratives and treat them as real. He may misspeak, but his policy views are usually anchored in facts, even if delivered slowly.

🧠 Final Analysis

If you're concerned about delusional belief systems affecting policy, Trump’s confabulation is more dangerous.
If you're concerned about basic cognitive stamina and clarity under pressure, Biden’s slowing is more concerning.

Most experts agree: both show age-related cognitive decline, but Trump’s patterns point more toward pathological distortion, while Biden’s indicate natural cognitive aging with possible executive support compensating.

The President was his usual self yesterday. 

mtierney said:

Wow, Jamie, you may be MIA on MOL, but you have been extremely immersed in the inner workings of Trump Think — I could only “skim” the numerous charts and calculations you offered. It is all above my pay grade!

But in the spirit of board collaboration, I posit  these questions: If Trump were a Democratic billionaire politician,  with wives and successful grown up children, and had been elected President — for the second time — (first term the “Democrat”  was paralyzed by time spent in courtrooms, by “Republican” Lawfare from fulfilling his goals) — do you all think the actual Democratic winner of 2020, Biden, could have remained in office for his entire first term and a another Democrat  candidate might have succeeded Biden?

The DNC has a lot of explaining to do to “spin” its disgraceful mis-use of this veteran Democrat in his hour of political — and personal need.

  Also, future historians will have a field day exposing the ex-presidential  (plus one failed candidate) cabal who thought the voting public was dumb.

so you refused to read the evidence about Trump's mental decline and changed the subject to repeat the same lies about Biden you've been posting for months. 

Not a surprise. 

The word “confabulation” is the most googled word in America this week…

Responding to Mtierney's post from her thread:

mtierney said:

@jamie — what was the source for your charts? I didn’t want to duck or diss the work you presented in your post, but I was rather dubious with the content’s emphasis.

is there anything specific you need supporting evidence?

For the 2 things you circled on Trump's side - I already covered these already.

But here's some examples of repeating distorted stories - if he didn't say any of these - please let me know:

1. “I Saw Muslims in New Jersey Celebrating 9/11”

2. “Obama Wiretapped My Phones at Trump Tower”

3. “Windmills Cause Cancer”

4. “I Had the Largest Inauguration Crowd Ever”

5. “I Was the One Who Got the COVID Vaccine Approved”

6. “I’m the Most Transparent President in History”

7. “I Won the 2020 Election”

8. “I Brought Peace to North Korea”

9. “We Were Energy Independent Under Me”

10. “I Was Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Everyone”

11. “George Washington’s Army Took Over the Airports”

12. “Finland Rakes Their Forests to Prevent Wildfires”

13. “I Saved the Veterans Choice Program”

14. “My Father Was Born in Germany”

Many in the above list also falls in line with false memories - here are a few others:

“I Met the Whistleblower Personally” (Ukraine Call)

Claim: During the first impeachment, Trump claimed to know the whistleblower and hinted at direct interaction.

Fact: The whistleblower was anonymous; there’s no evidence they met.

False memory aspect: Suggests a constructed memory based on paranoia or imagined details.

“Nobody Knew About Abraham Lincoln Until I Started Talking About Him”

Claim: Suggested he elevated Lincoln’s legacy by mentioning him often.

Fact: Lincoln has always been one of the most studied and celebrated U.S. presidents.

False memory aspect: Seems to have internalized a distorted historical timeline.

“I Was With the Rescue Workers on 9/11”

Another version of the Ground Zero story, where he claims he “helped” emergency responders.

Fact: Again, no corroboration; multiple variations of the story exist with conflicting details.

False memory aspect: May be emotionally real to him, but factually untrue.

I ask that you share similar Biden examples.

Today's confabulation story - posed was the following - a very common Trump rant:

"I got rid of – just one I got rid of the other night, you buy a house, they have a faucet in the house, Joe, and the faucet the water doesn’t come out. They have a restrictor. You can’t – in areas where you have so much water they don’t know what to do with it. Uh, you have a shower head the shower doesn’t uh, the shower doesn’t, you think it’s not working. It is working. The water’s dripping out and that’s no good for me. I like this hair lace and [sic] – I like that hair nice and wet. Takes you – you have to stand in the shower for 20 minutes before you get the soap out of your hair. And I put a, a thing – and it sounds funny but it’s really not. It’s horrible. And uh, when you wash your hands, you turn on the faucet, no water comes out. You’re washing whole – water barely comes out it’s ridi – this was done by crazy people. And I wor – wrote it all off and got it approved in Congress so that they can’t just change it.”

Here's the interesting breakdown:

Donald Trump’s rambling anecdote about faucets, showers, and hair-washing, ending with a claim that he “got it approved in Congress” so they can’t change it—is a strong example of confabulation.

It illustrates several key characteristics: distorted memory, fabricated or exaggerated causality, emotional conviction, and narrative confusion. Let’s break it down.

🧠 Confabulation Analysis: The Faucet Story

"You buy a house… the water doesn’t come out… the shower doesn’t work… I like that hair nice and wet… I got it approved in Congress so they can’t change it.”

🔁 1. Confused Timeline and Causality

• Trump blends different timeframes—"just one I got rid of the other night"—with vague references to past legislation and current action.

• He seems to conflate an old regulatory issue (Obama-era water flow restrictions) with a recent, personal action (“I got it approved in Congress”).

📌 Confabulation Trait: Confuses when and how events occurred, blending memory fragments into a coherent-seeming but inaccurate timeline.

🛁 2. Misattribution of Action

• Trump claims he “wrote it all off and got it approved in Congress”—a misunderstanding or false memory.

• In reality:

  • In 2020, his Department of Energy proposed rule changes to loosen water efficiency limits (like showerhead flow).

  • Congress did not pass anything; this was an administrative rule change.

• The story misattributes agency to himself in a formal legislative process.

📌 Confabulation Trait: Falsely inserts himself into the action—believes he did something he did not do, and that it happened in a way it did not happen.

😠 3. Emotionally Charged “Reality”

• The shower story is not just told for policy—it’s tied to a personal grievance:

  “That’s no good for me… I like that hair nice and wet.”

• The detail about his own hair makes the story feel real to him, even though the policy mechanics are wrong.

• The anger ("this was done by crazy people") also anchors the memory emotionally, reinforcing belief in its truth.

📌 Confabulation Trait: Emotion + familiarity = false memory confidence.

🌀 4. Disorganized, Circular Structure

• The story loops from faucets → showers → hair → soap → faucets again → hand-washing → Congress.

• There’s no logical sequencing, which mirrors speech patterns in people experiencing executive dysfunction—difficulty with ordering, filtering, and summarizing.

📌 Confabulation Trait: Loosely connected or looping narrative built around a constructed memory fragment.

📌 Summary of Confabulatory Indicators

🧠 Why This Is Not Just Political Spin

Unlike a strategic exaggeration, this story:

• Lacks intentional messaging discipline

• Is personalized in an odd and unnecessary way

• Contains a legislative claim that is verifiably false

• Is delivered with certainty, despite factual inaccuracy

That’s what makes this a textbook case of confabulation, not just embellishment.

me thinks you do protest too much! 

Trump won the 2024 election by  some 77 million more votes…Biden had displayed many real and scary health conditions,  until he was forced to step aside and we all witnessed the mess that ensued — the voters did….hmm, there is no Democrat currently in the wings ready to take over the Oval Office in 2028 (unless you think Mamdani is ready) …so for the remainder of Trump’s term, you think it patriotic to diss the voters who pick the winner to prove how ticked off you all are?

I don’t think playing those odds with American Democracy  in this time of worldwide danger and threats from enemies foreign and domestic would really make you all better off. Losers are losers.

mtierney said:

me thinks you do protest too much! 

Trump won the 2024 election by  some 77 million more votes…Biden had displayed many real and scary health conditions,  until he was forced to step aside and we all witnessed the mess that ensued — the voters did….hmm, there is no Democrat currently in the wings ready to take over the Oval Office in 2028 (unless you think Mamdani is ready) …so for the remainder of Trump’s term, you think it patriotic to diss the voters who pick the winner to prove how ticked off you all are?

I don’t think playing those odds with American Democracy  in this time of worldwide danger and threats from enemies foreign and domestic would really make you all better off. Losers are losers.

What does this have to do with Trump's current mental decline?

mtierney said:

me thinks you do protest too much! 

Trump won the 2024 election by  some 77 million more votes…Biden had displayed many real and scary health conditions,  until he was forced to step aside and we all witnessed the mess that ensued — the voters did….hmm, there is no Democrat currently in the wings ready to take over the Oval Office in 2028 (unless you think Mamdani is ready) …so for the remainder of Trump’s term, you think it patriotic to diss the voters who pick the winner to prove how ticked off you all are?

I don’t think playing those odds with American Democracy  in this time of worldwide danger and threats from enemies foreign and domestic would really make you all better off. Losers are losers.

People are critical of Trump because he is engaging in cruel and unconstitutional behavior.  It has nothing to do with being on the losing end of the last election.