Confabulation, an Early Sign of Dementia

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Chris Truax, an appellate lawyer and the past Southern California chair of John McCain's 2008 presidential primary campaign, wrote a most interesting opinion piece for "The Hill," an internet poliotical news magazine, last week, one that has been gaining much traction across the internet and social media.  His opinion article was entitled:  "Trump's mental decline is undeniable - so what now?"

To validate that alarming title, the author notes that Donald Trump has always been willing to "mislead" people when it is to his advantage - and others of us would use a stronger word than "mislead" - but he notes that the presidential misstatements are becoming worse.  Truax discusses a phenomenon that he calls "confabulation," or "honest lying," because the person who is doing it "genuinely believes what he is saying, even if it is patently false."

People make mistakes by misremembering or forgetting details, or they tell outright lies for their own advantage, but confabulation is more serious.  When a person confabulates, he exhibits complete and vivid memories of false information, things that never happened.

Truax cites, as an example of Trump slipping into confabulation, the story that he recently told about his uncle, an MIT professor named John Trump who had degrees in "nuclear, chemical, and math."  Donald Trump said that his Uncle John, the professor, once told him he taught Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and his uncle talked about how smart Kaczynski had been.  Then Truax, the opinion writer, dissected that story and stated that although John Trump had been a professor at MIT, the rest of the story was patently false.   The uncle's degree was in electrical engineering and physics, Kaczynski had never attended MIT, and at the time of Trump's uncle's death, the name of the Unabomber was unknown.  Yet Donald Trump had been enthusiastic in his telling of the story and obviously believed what he was saying.

The author also cited Trump's recent inability to remember that he was the President who appointed Jerome Powell to head the Federal Reserve.

Chris Truax notes that confabulation is an early sign of dementia, and he adds that so is difficulty with mathematical concepts, and he gives examples of how Trump tends to wander through things like perentages and spout gibberish, where a man who spent his lifetime in business (and with a university business degree) would have a long history of working with and understanding percentages.

Basically the author says that Trump is showing signs of mental decline and he offers examples to buttress his arguments.  He goes on to talk about Biden's signs of mental decline while in office and his staff's ability to cover for his failings, but he argues that Trump's underlings are far less apt to step up and try to manage his actions, tell him "no," or even threaten to resign.  Trump, through the force of his character, has fewer safeguards than Biden did while he was in office.

It's an interesting article, and it is currently all over the internet.  If Donald Trump is experiencing mental slippage now, where will he and the rest of us be three-and-a-half years from now?

There is plenty to worry about.