Trump wasnt always so linguistically challenged. What could explain the change?

[erronis]

Trump speaking style interviews

It was the kind of utterance that makes professional transcribers question their career choice:

“ … there is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but I can always speak for myself — and the Russians, zero.”

When President Trump offered that response to a question at a press conference last week, it was the latest example of his tortured syntax, mid-thought changes of subject, and apparent trouble formulating complete sentences, let alone a coherent paragraph, in unscripted speech.

...

Now, Trump’s vocabulary is simpler. He repeats himself over and over, and lurches from one subject to an unrelated one, as in this answer during an interview with the Associated Press last month:

“People want the border wall. My base definitely wants the border wall, my base really wants it — you’ve been to many of the rallies. OK, the thing they want more than anything is the wall. My base, which is a big base; I think my base is 45 percent. You know, it’s funny. The Democrats, they have a big advantage in the Electoral College. Big, big, big advantage. … The Electoral College is very difficult for a Republican to win, and I will tell you, the people want to see it. They want to see the wall.”

[LOL Lib]

1. What is Batshit Crazy Alex?

[RKP5637]

2. He definitely, IMO, shows signs of dementia. n/t

[erronis]

15. Good doctoral thesis: Why do repuglican presidents tend to get senile earlier?

Something to do with the conservative brain structures?

[RKP5637]

16. It would be interesting to see if there were any correlation whatsoever relative to the amygdala. nt

[riversedge]

3. This study only used Trumps unscripted comments-over the years-based on science of the brain...

..............For decades, studies have found that deterioration in the fluency, complexity, and vocabulary level of spontaneous speech can indicate slipping brain function due to normal aging or neurodegenerative disease. STAT and the experts therefore considered only unscripted utterances, not planned speeches and statements, since only the former tap the neural networks that offer a window into brain function.


The experts noted clear changes from Trump’s unscripted answers 30 years ago to those in 2017, in some cases stark enough to raise questions about his brain health. They noted, however, that the same sort of linguistic decline can also reflect stress, frustration, anger, or just plain fatigue.

Ben Michaelis, a psychologist in New York City, performed cognitive assessments at the behest of the New York Supreme Court and criminal courts and taught the technique at a hospital and university. “There are clearly some changes in Trump as a speaker” since the 1980s, said Michaelis, who does not support Trump, including a “clear reduction in linguistic sophistication over time,” with “simpler word choices and sentence structure. … In fairness to Trump, he’s 70, so some decline in his cognitive functioning over time would be expected.”

Some sentences, or partial sentences, would, if written, make a second-grade teacher despair. “We’ll do some questions, unless you have enough questions,” Trump told a February press conference. And last week, he told NBC’s Lester Holt, “When I did this now I said, I probably, maybe will confuse people, maybe I’ll expand that, you know, lengthen the time because it should be over with, in my opinion, should have been over with a long time ago.”..........................

[LeftInTX]

20. I think Trump has nasal polyps which effects his speech.

Everyone likes to say it is cocaine, but I think he's got polyps. His personality has changed over the years. Trump's MO changed. I can't remember whether his feud with Rosie began before or after the Apprentice. Then in the Apprentice, he developed a different speaking style.

Keep in mind, his base loves his speaking style. If he would have spoke articulately as he did in that 80s video, he never would have won.

They like terms like "bigly".

They like that he speaks at their level.

We're sitting here analyzing it, while his base loves it.

[procon]

4. Dementia.

He's not aging very well, is he?

[Runningdawg]

18. EXACTLY

Anyone who has taken care of someone with dementia and/or Alzheimers knows that speech changes drastically. Look at a Trump interview from just 5 years ago - it is obvious.

[Motley13]

5. try to decipher these

Donald Trump said a lot during Monday night's presidential debate — whether people understand what he said is a very different matter.

Throughout the course night, the candidate was accused of making a "word salad." All across Twitter, viewers accused Trump of "rambling," speaking in circles and even making up words.

SEE ALSO: Trump's debate sniffles are louder than his words

Below is a small, diverse sample of Trump's word salads.

Use your best detective skills, and see if you can understand what Trump was trying to say:
On our trade deals:

"When we sell into Mexico, there's a tax. When they sell in — automatic, 16 percent, approximately. When they sell into us, there's no tax."
On Hillary Clinton's website:

"And look at her website. You know what? It's no difference than this. She's telling us how to fight ISIS."


On losing jobs to other countries:

"[They're] leaving because taxes are too high and because some of them have lots of money outside of our country. And instead of bringing it back and putting the money to work, because they can't work out a deal to — and everybody agrees it should be brought back."
On the Fed:

"And we have a Fed that's doing political things. This Janet Yellen of the Fed. The Fed is doing political — by keeping the interest rates at this level. And believe me: The day Obama goes off, and he leaves, and goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf, when they raise interest rates, you're going to see some very bad things happen, because the Fed is not doing their job."
On releasing his taxes:

"Almost every lawyer says, you don't release your returns until the audit's complete. When the audit's complete, I'll do it. But I would go against them if she releases her emails.

HOLT: So it's negotiable?

TRUMP: It's not negotiable, no.
On reports that his business struggled:

"The report that said $650 — which, by the way, a lot of friends of mine that know my business say, boy, that's really not a lot of money. It's not a lot of money relative to what I had. The buildings that were in question, they said in the same report, which was — actually, it wasn't even a bad story, to be honest with you, but the buildings are worth $3.9 billion. And the $650 isn't even on that."
On stop and frisk:

HOLT: Stop-and-frisk was ruled unconstitutional in New York, because it largely singled out black and Hispanic young men.

TRUMP: No, you're wrong. It went before a judge, who was a very against-police judge.
On his company:

I am very under-leveraged. I have a great company. I have a tremendous income. And the reason I say that is not in a braggadocios way. It's because it's about time that this country had somebody running it that has an idea about money.

Sometimes Twitter says it best:

[erronis]

14. Amazing list of twits from the twit-in-chief!

And people worry about the new new-speak - LOL!

[librechik]

6. My mom was taking too many "supplements"

they made her kind of groggy. My brother got her to stop, but she still sneaks them occasionally.

I suspect prescription drugs may be involved, (Xanax? possibly even Dramamine? ) although dementia, as others have mentioned, is certainly possible. Even normal aging can cut down your facility and vocabulary. So much stuff in there, there's a lag between thought and language.

However, my first thought was "moron" and my second was "duplicitous"

I'm sure it's complicated.

[Motley13]

7. just to keep your head spinning

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes,
OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart
—you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if,
like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the
smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a
conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's
why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went
there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my
like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but
you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would
have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear
is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the
power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of
what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?),
but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it
used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I
would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because,
you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter
right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about
another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us

[Orrex]

8. If you watch Dubya's earlier, pre-Whitehouse interviews..

He seems almost eloquent compared to his rumblings as president. Interviews show him to be reflective and reserved, actually taming time to articulate complete thoughts.

In contrast, Trump has never been eloquent or articulate, despite the pop culture fantasy that he's a smart businessman. Starting from that lower bar, he amazingly proves himself to be even less intelligent than President Dubya.


And it only becomes more clear with each rambling utterance.

[dalton99a]

19. W is basically inarticulate

Trump is a con man constantly trying to shift the subject to hide his IQ

(Well, W is not a genius either)

[LeftInTX]

21. W's speech was pretty bad when he was first elected governor

He had a cockiness and a smirk that made you want to smack his face.

His speech improved while governor.

I think he struggled with his speaking and tried to improve it.

I don't think he is was dumb.
I don't think Trump is dumb.
They can't be that dumb, cuz they fooled a bunch of people.

I always thought Reagan was dumb.
But people liked that he was simpleton.

[Orrex]

22. re: Trump

I have never heard him say anything that was the least bit insightful beyond what any wholly average person could as readily have said.

It's entirely possible (and increasingly likely) that he's an idiot who is also a skilled manipulator, like a deranged carnival barker.

[LeftInTX]

23. His fans like his speaking style

[Orrex]

24. Because he's an idiot speaking to idiots

Not some uppity negro putting on airs.


Trump's chumps do not want our outreach, our empathy, or our understanding. They want our silence and our subjugation. When they get their idiot racist heads out of their idiot racist assholes, then I will reach out to them. It is not my job nor your job to pull their idiot racist heads out of their idiot racists assholes for them.

[mopinko]

9. clearly dementia, imho.

the evil, arrogant, duplicitous stuff goes way back, but the word salad seems clear to me.
the impulsiveness, too, is indicative. again, never had much self control, but i gotta believe that he would never have gotten anywhere in business if he didnt know when to keep his mouth shut. he would certainly have spent some time in prison along the way.

[unblock]

10. well he's definitely overdosed on foxnews. that shit's a real killer.

[JoeStuckInOH]

11. He thinks he can say what he wants - because it's good to be the king...

[DFW]

12. I agree--advancing dementia

The trouble is, he's a Republican, so it isn't apparent as quickly as it would be if it were a Democrat making those utterings. We've grown to expect that scatterbrained speech from Republicans. The Republicans, on the other hand, were looking to pin the same diagnosis on Hillary, who remains perfectly lucid to this day. Had Hillary taken office, and came out with the same word salad Trump is now offering up, the Republicans would have been calling for her removal from office and being institutionalized. They might well have been right, too, which is why they never say a word about Trump's condition.

The Republican diagnosis is: "See that big R in front of his name? That means no dementia!"

[lpbk2713]

13. Burnout.

[RKP5637]

17. I'm sure there's an element of that in there plus he has no idea WTF he's doing. n/t