The Semi-Official Death Watch of Donald Trump Thread

[Kraken]

Yeah, tongue firmly in cheek. And for the record, as much as I detest Trump, I am not rooting for an embolism; I believe a Pence administration will be more dangerous. But here we have it:

“On Trump Force One there were four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza, and Diet Coke.”

There is no question that this diet is dangerous and is very likely to shorten a person’s life. His dietary pattern adds to the picture of a 70-year-old man who has long been living against all health advice—who does not exercise, who barely sleeps, who has tumultuous relationships, who is frequently enraged. His lifestyle seems pulled from a question on a medical-school exam where the answer is “prepare the cath lab.”

Whaddaya think? Is the man going to stroke out before the legal noose tightens, or after the indictments are filed?

[Holman]

"If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."

In all seriousness, though, I fear another Trump thread to follow will be too much for me.

[tgb]

Pence is at least sane and not likely to bumble his way into nuclear holocaust. We can survive Pence. Trump is still questionable.

[tgb]

[YellowKing]

I think dementia will get him before a heart attack does.

Here's my biggest fear, though, and I don't think it's going that much out on a limb. I think as soon as the legal noose starts tightening, he attacks North Korea.

[Kraken]

In all seriousness, though, I fear another Trump thread to follow will be too much for me.

This one will be uplifting, though.

Pence is at least sane and not likely to bumble his way into nuclear holocaust. We can survive Pence. Trump is still questionable.

Pence is at least minimally competent; he will not blunder his way from crisis to crisis, accomplishing nothing on the way. Do you think Trump had anything to do with the tax cuts, besides bluster and misdirection? Trump is as much of an impediment as an asset to the Republican agenda.

So I kinda hope he doesn't die in office. But if y'all want to root for that, be my guests.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I think dementia will get him before a heart attack does.

I think it's pretty clear he already has dementia. And I think that fact doesn't bother Congress at all as long as it means they can still get their agenda passed.

[Kraken]

Trump has physical scheduled for early 2018

President Trump has scheduled a physical health exam for early next year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and will share the results with the public, the White House announced Thursday, a day after Trump’s slurred speech sparked concern about his health.

Trump slurred his words during a policy address Wednesday about Israel, inspiring media speculation that he may have had a dental or health problem. But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that Trump simply was suffering from a dry throat.

Something tells me that if he's diagnosed with early-stage dementia caused by advancing atherosclerosis, we aren't going to hear about it. I'm sure he'll be fine.

[Remus West]

Given how quickly we were given access to his tax returns I'm sure we will be getting the full results regardless of what they say.

[Jaymann]

Maybe it will shed some light on Mush-mouth gate.

[tgb]

Given how quickly we were given access to his tax returns I'm sure we will be getting the full results regardless of what they say.

I was gonna say that the results will be released as soon as the audit is over.

Now get out of my head.

[Kraken]

Thanks to HIPAA, his doctors can't say anything they aren't authorized to say, and Trump will inevitably claim that he enjoys perfect health. The truth is strictly between him and his doctor(s)...as it should be, but I'd sure like to know it.

[Smoove_B]

He absolutely needs to be medically evaluated, and it's not just because he was talking like Sylvester the cat. I know the dentures theory is popular, but I'm having a hard time believing Trump would wear dentures. Aren't those for the poors?

[Holman]

He absolutely needs to be medically evaluated, and it's not just because he was talking like Sylvester the cat. I know the dentures theory is popular, but I'm having a hard time believing Trump would wear dentures. Aren't those for the poors?

Rich people get implants, but Trump is known to have all kinds of weird aversions and phobias, so it's entirely possible that he refused the more invasive option.

[Jeff V]

I think dementia will get him before a heart attack does.

I think it's pretty clear he already has dementia. And I think that fact doesn't bother Congress at all as long as it means they can still get their agenda passed.

Dementia wasn't an impediment to Reagan getting elected to a second term. It will be funny though if all public appearances suddenly stop.

[Kraken]

He absolutely needs to be medically evaluated, and it's not just because he was talking like Sylvester the cat. I know the dentures theory is popular, but I'm having a hard time believing Trump would wear dentures. Aren't those for the poors?

Rich people get implants, but Trump is known to have all kinds of weird aversions and phobias, so it's entirely possible that he refused the more invasive option.

The normalization of implants is relatively recent (since the 2000s, I believe), so much would depend upon when his teeth needed replacing.

Wife is halfway through a years-long and crazy-expensive process of building a bionic mouth. When I suggested that dentures would be cheaper and faster, she sniffed that nobody wears dentures anymore. All of our parents had them, but us baby boomers have evolved beyond such primitive remedies. Trump is on the leading edge of the boom. If he lost his teeth when he was fairly young, dentures would have still been normal.

He's not the billionaire tycoon that he pretends to be, but he's still plenty rich enough to have been retrofitted with implants if he'd ever wanted them, so maybe that's where his phobias come in...or maybe he has medical issues with his jawbone. Who knows?

[Freyland]

Jaw bones made from a shit composite are too soft to secure implants.

[Kraken]

The Atlantic asks "Is something neurologically wrong with Donald Trump?"

Of course, they are not the first to ask the question or to conclude "yeah, probably," but the gist of their story is that Trump's evident decline points up the need for a formal process to assess presidential competence.

The lack of a system to evaluate presidential fitness only stands to become more consequential as the average age of leaders increases. The Constitution sets finite lower limits on age but gives no hint of an upper limit. At the time of its writing, septuagenarians were relatively rare, and having survived so long was a sign of heartiness and cautiousness. Now it is the norm. In 2016 the top three presidential candidates turned 69, 70, and 75. By the time of the 2021 inauguration, a President Joe Biden would be 78.

After age 40, the brain decreases in volume by about 5 percent every decade. The most noticeable loss is in the frontal lobes. These control motor functioning of the sort that would direct a hand to a cup and a cup to the mouth in one fluid motion—in most cases without even looking at the cup.

These lobes also control much more important processes, from language to judgment to impulsivity. Everyone experiences at least some degree of cognitive and motor decline over time, and some 8.8 percent of Americans over 65 now have dementia. An annual presidential physical exam at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is customary, and Trump’s is set for January 12. But the utility of a standard physical exam—knowing a president’s blood pressure and weight and the like—is meager compared with the value of comprehensive neurologic, psychological, and psychiatric evaluation. These are not part of a standard physical.

Even if they were voluntarily undertaken, there would be no requirement to disclose the results. A president could be actively hallucinating, threatening to launch a nuclear attack based on intelligence he had just obtained from David Bowie, and the medical community could be relegated to speculation from afar.

Now "The Man Who Sold the World" is stuck in my head.

[Combustible Lemur]

I was with them till the last paragraph. It's not nearly so much a question of what if they're demented. It's how do you avoid the circus surrounding mental testing for the president. You SHOULDN'T release the results. If he's healthy, the media and pundits and lobbyists, would snatch, and spin, and howl until the word healthy had no meaning, not to mention setting the precedent of non confidentiality. Let's assume a pass/fail. The public shouldn't even be aware that it's happening unless a fail occurs and probably not even then. What would the legal and diplomatic concequences finding out your president is unfit?
Granted we are in the middle of this grand experiment on the subject. But hopefully this is an outlier. Reagan would be a better example or case study.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[LordMortis]

Now "The Man Who Sold the World" is stuck in my head.

This song has been stuck in my head for a weeks with regard to the president, which makes it even more interesting with regard to this thread as the song is an extension of the idea being haunted by a ghost into the become a sort of smeagol gollum. (I just learned part of this today. I had never heard of the poem it was drawn from, "Antigonish", until today. Bowie's influences often intrigue me when I am invited to research them)

Spoiler:

"As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away!"

When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...

Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...