Donald Trump Passes Mental Competence Test. What About America?

 

Recently Donald Trump decided to, or was asked to, take a mental competence test. These are not the most difficult tests. They are designed to see if a person is competent enough to hold a bank account or remember the rules of the road in order to quality for a driver license. One would certainly expect the leader of the country to pass such a test. It appeared that Trump must have had some doubts about passing the test because he felt the need to brag about passing it.

Dana Milbank reported about it this way in the Washington Post:

“We should be relieved that President Trump claims he “aced” his cognitive assessment, including what he calls the “very hard” last five questions. Such as:

  • Identifying the similarity between a train and a bicycle.
  • Repeating the sentence: “The cat always hid under the couch when dogs were in the room.”
  • And naming at least 11 words beginning with the letter “F” in one minute.

 

Forgive me for finding fun and frivolity in our fearless first minister’s feeble self-flattery, for his felicitous finesse, fluid facility and firm familiarity with F-words, far from folly, are fully fitting, and fundamentally and fantastically fortuitous.

Many of us have been making jokes about this at the president’s expense. The thought that someone would brag about passing such a test is astonishingly absurd. He even bragged that the last few questions were hard.   The image of this is stunning. Not funny at all.

The bigger question however—much bigger—is what does all of this say about the United States that it has a president who feels the need to brag about passing competency test? What does it say about millions of American voters?  Malik put the issue this way:

“The real question is whether we, as a nation, could pass a cognitive assessment test. At the moment, we’re struggling with the national equivalent of distinguishing a lion from a rhinoceros: 17.8 million Americans are without jobs — but Trump is pushing to cut payroll taxes for those who already have jobs.

Unemployment assistance has held off a wave of evictions, foreclosures and mass hunger — but Trump and congressional Republicans are proposing to cut it.

Schools need new funds so that they can protect teachers and students from the virus if they reopen their doors — but Trump threatened to withhold money from schools if they don’t open.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health are struggling to contain the virus and to get remedies to the public — but Trump seeks to phase out funding for both, as well as for testing and contact tracing, ABC News reports.

The federal government poured trillions of dollars into coronavirus recovery legislation, and tens of millions of Americans sheltered in their homes to limit the spread — only for the country to squander both by reopening too soon without following public health guidelines.

State and local governments are hemorrhaging cash as they fight the virus — but instead of providing them relief, congressional Republicans are focused on protecting private businesses from lawsuits if they make workers sick.”

 

This question is not a joke either. I think the evidence is in and clear—America is incompetent. It does not qualify to govern its own affairs any longer. It should appoint a substitute decision maker (power of attorney) unless it is too late. Some people are so incompetent they have lost the capacity to appoint a substitute decision maker. That might really be the case with the United States.

Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans bragged at the recent convention how the whole world wishes it was as successful as the United States in combating the coronavirus. On what planet do these people live? The United States has had more coronavirus cases and more deaths than any other country in the world. It’s per capita rate is also among the world’s highest. Wuhan China, where the virus appears to have started went into a strict lockdown for 3 months and is now out of it after having no new cases for about 3months.

Virtually every country in the world has done better at combatting the virus than the US has done. Europe has banned Americans from traveling there. The richest country in the world has done the poorest job at containing the virus. Meanwhile it’s large yahoo contingent is clamouring to open up the country because the Covid restrictions are hampering their freedom. Meanwhile its economy has gone into the tank as the pandemic in that country drags on and on.

Many countries including Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and others are slowly gradually returning to normal after suppressing the virus while in the United States roughly 1,000 people per day of are dying as a consequence of the virus and they are finding it very difficult to do the testing all the experts say they need to do. Everyone realizes they are not doing well, except for Trump, his cohorts and his millions of implacably loyal followers who will follow him slavishly and blindly no matter how close to the precipice he leads them. None of these people want to look at the truth it is too uncomfortable for them.

I think Malik was right in reaching this conclusion about American competence:

No, our national cognitive assessment is not promising. But now come the “very hard” last questions:

 

Will Republicans, in these final months before the election, find the elusive courage to disavow Trump’s madness?

Will the people reject him and his enablers in 106 days?

And, if Trump loses, will all Americans insist he do what he refused to commit to on Sunday: honor the will of the people?

If not, we will have earned ourselves a big, fat F.

And meanwhile the American president brags about what a great job he and his administration have done in combatting the virus. This is madness in high definition! Insanity on steroids. No wonder there isn’t any truth left.

2 thoughts on “Donald Trump Passes Mental Competence Test. What About America?

  1. A place of anomie, but where almost everyone in the ruling class has expensive, extremely straight, large, and incredibly white teeth. I think when their next revolution comes the haves will be betrayed by those implanted porcelain chiclets. “OFF with his caps!”

Leave a Reply to Mitchell ToewsCancel reply