The cognitive collapse of Donald J. Trump

Hunched forward, gripping the podium, mouth-breathing, and visibly struggling to get enough air to push out the words. His skin was greasy with uneven patches of orange, his voice was weak, and his sentences rambled and veered off course. He read words when expected, got a laugh on cue, and then, mid-celebration of a national sports team, started ranting about oil. It was incoherent and disjointed, and the crowd around him just kept clapping like everything was fine. This was the President of the United States earlier today when he hosted the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers at the White House. And if you watched the footage, you saw all of this too.

This attempt to showcase the president in his prime, with “the highest testosterone level Dr. Oz has ever seen for someone his age,” according to RFK Jr., was another attempt to distract us from his continued decline. And it came less than 24 hours after footage surfaced of him audibly snoring during a highly produced propaganda meeting about promoting cow’s milk.

That was a televised White House event, too. And he fell asleep, snoring, his head dipping forward and jerking back awake like a man constantly startled by his own body. All while everyone in that room pretended not to notice. Not one person said a word. This just keeps happening, and every time it does, it’s not just uncomfortable; it is dystopian. Because this is no longer about a man aging poorly. This is about a regime so obsessed with loyalty and image that even a president who cannot stay awake, cannot stay on the same thought train, and cannot hold a coherent conversation is treated as no big deal. But this is the President of the United States. The man who has access to nuclear codes, who is the commander-in-chief of the world’s largest military. If he can no longer stay awake, rambles incoherently, and has sent ICE and federal agents to terrorize his own countrymen, we must face just how much danger we are in under his “leadership”.

And that was just yesterday. Today, he met with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. At the White House. She came hoping to change his mind, to convince him to back her return to power. Trump had previously dismissed her chances of leading Venezuela, calling her support too weak and her path unrealistic. So she brought him something she thought he would want. She handed him her Nobel Peace Prize. The actual medal. And he took it. It didn’t matter to him that the Nobel Committee had said publicly that you cannot give the title to someone else. That’s not how it works. But Trump doesn’t care. He wanted to say he had it. And in return, after accepting the literal prize she earned, he gave her a glossy red gift bag with his own signature embossed in gold foil. That was her reward. A branded souvenir. And all the while she was in there having lunch with him, she probably still thought she had a chance to actually sway him. During that moment, though, Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt was in another room, telling reporters that while Trump had looked forward to the meeting, he still stood by his “realistic” assessment that Machado didn’t currently have the support needed to lead the country in the short term. This would all be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.

And while Trump was enamored with a prize he didn’t win, the state of Minnesota was fighting for its life. Thousands of federal agents, sent by Trump, are now patrolling the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They are not looking for terrorists or violent criminals. They are detaining people based on appearance. They are stopping vans full of children on the way to school. They are asking bystanders to prove their citizenship. And the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, is now admitting what we all knew was coming. When asked whether Americans should be prepared to carry proof of citizenship, she said they may ask people to “validate their identity.” Which is just a roundabout way of saying yes, we are entering the Gestapo papers era, where your ability to move freely, go to school, or just exist in public now depends on whether you pass a snap inspection by federal agents. And if you don’t look like their desired version of ‘white,’ don’t count on leniency.

Most Americans do not carry proof of citizenship. According to the Brennan Center, more than 21 million U.S. citizens don’t have any form of documentation readily available. And even among those who do, only about 48% of Americans have a valid passport. That matters, because they might not accept a driver’s license. They might demand official documents with both a photo and citizenship status explicitly listed, and those who do have a passport don’t typically walk around with it. This includes people who never got a passport, whose birth certificates were lost or destroyed, who changed their names through marriage or divorce, or who were born in rural areas or to immigrant parents and never received standard records. Women are especially at risk here. A woman who was born under one name, changed it after marriage, and changed it again after divorce may now have multiple names tied to a single identity. Is she expected to carry every piece of that paper trail with her at all times? Her birth certificate. Her marriage license. Her divorce decree. Her passport. Her driver’s license. Her Social Security card. What happens when she can’t? What happens when she’s pulled over?

And as federal agents continue this occupation in Minnesota, Trump took to Truth Social to escalate even further: “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State. Thank you for you [sic] attention to this matter! President DJT”

That wasn’t a slip. Every word was intentional. It was a sitting president threatening to deploy the U.S. military against American civilians. And the White House backed him up. When asked about Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the message “spoke very loud and clear to Democrats across this country.” Not to criminals, but to his political opposition and really to anyone who dares speak out. This regime isn’t hiding what it wants anymore. They are laying the groundwork for military enforcement against anyone who doesn’t fall in line. And before anyone says “he can’t do that,” let me stop you right there. He already is. He already threatened to cancel the midterms. Remember, he told Reuters that the country “shouldn’t even have an election” because he’s done so much. And when asked to clarify, his press team said it was just a joke. But we know better. We’ve seen this pattern. He floats the threat. His staff walks it back. Then he does it anyway. That is how authoritarianism works. It creeps in while everyone is laughing. It consolidates power while people say, “the courts will stop him.” And his big picture with all this is simple in his own mind: provoke violence, then claim the need for martial law, postpone (cancel) elections, and once tactics like this are used in Minnesota, they will roll them out everywhere.

And why is he taking it this far? Because he’s scared. Trump told us, in his own words, that he believes if Republicans lose the midterms, he’ll be impeached again. “You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be, I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” he said during a speech at the House Republican policy retreat earlier this month. “I’ll get impeached.” He knows what’s coming. And instead of facing that possibility, of being held accountable by even the thinnest margin of democratic process, he’s doing what every autocrat does when the walls start closing in: he’s laying the legal, political, and military groundwork to shut it all down. We should be taking every single word seriously, because history tells us exactly where this leads.

And when we get to the other side of this, and we will, people will deny they ever supported it. Just like they did in Germany. They will say they didn’t know, that they weren’t involved, they were following orders, they had no choice, or that they were trying to protect their families. They will claim it wasn’t that bad and that they didn’t know what was really happening. They will deny it all. And they will expect us to play along. But we will not. We will remember. And we will say, clearly, for all time, that we saw it while it was happening. That we fought it and resisted. That we did everything in our power to stop it. That is the legacy that will matter. That is how we will be remembered, unlike those who stayed silent or worse, who cheered it on while others were dragged away. And that is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too. Because there are more of us than them. We will prevail. And we will build back an America we can all be proud to call ours.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

P.S. If you’ve made it this far, chances are we see things the same way. You can make a difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. There is a free option and the option to help me reach a wider audience with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country.