Look! New York Times suddenly discovers Trump’s extensive ‘cognitive decline’

Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, the New York Times faced relentless charges of selling out for access journalism — minimizing the administration’s ineptitude and cruelty in order to maintain favored status among national media companies.

And during the current presidential campaign, the Times has suffered withering critiques of “sane-washing” Trump’s rambling, incoherence and failure to put forth — let alone understand — complex policy proposals.

But now, roughly a month before the election — after running President Joe Biden from the election with non-stop questions about his age — the Times seemingly has just discovered that Trump, now the oldest candidate to run for president, “rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth.”

In an explanatory Sunday piece on Trump’s cognitive decline, reporters Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman — should we read anything into Maggie Haberman’s byline not being on this report? — finally compile what millions of voters already have witnessed: The mental degradation of Trump:

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age.

Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than p ositive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.)

Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

The Times, you’ll recall, demanded Biden withdraw from the race (June 28) before calling Trump unfit (July 11). Interestingly, in Sunday’s piece, the Times calls Trump’s condition a “cognitive change,” while the story’s URL says it’s “cognitive decline.” Even in this instance, it’s likely a telling hedge.

— Trump’s rallies have become darker by the day, “powered by anger as much as anything else.”

— Name-calling dominates as he labels his political rivals “lunatics” and “deranged” and “communists” and “fascists.”

— He lies — about immigrants eating pets, FEMA withholding funds to hurricane victims, and more.

— Profanities slide off his tongue with regularity.

— He imagines awards he never won.

He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.

But don’t try to correct him, because “Trump is never wrong,” he says. “I am never, ever wrong.”

And finally, it appears, even the Times isn’t buying it.

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