"I have to go upstairs to take care of The Afghanistan."

[no_hypocrisy]

Last edited Fri Jun 21, 2024, 09:13 AM - Edit history (3)

When Trump cut short his interview with the author of Apprentice In Wonderland, he "excused" himself to leave by claiming he had to deal with Afghanistan. Trouble is that he was out of office, no longer the President, and was a private citizen when he said it.

I'm not saying his situation is the same, but I see some parallels in my personal experience.

I have a dear friend from college, age 67. Over the past years, she has suffered a declining memory and cognitive skills. (She used to be quite the wit.) Her family had to move her out of her apartment and into their family's home.

And here's my point. She talks like Trump. I'll be visiting her on a Sunday afternoon, and she'll cut the visit short by claiming that she has to return to sorting through her papers and documents, none of which are in her quarter. Another situation: She made an illegal left turn across two lanes of a major highway with a red light. The officer asked her why she did it. Her answer: She had to hurry to get home because she had very hungry cats. And she was sincere.

All she has is a bed in a bedroom, a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a place to watch cable TV. She is oblivious to what's going on around her. She still has some memories of the past. And were it not for her full-time aide, she would have walked one mile to her childhood home, believing her family still lives there. It's disconcerting and unsettling: my friend is a shell of her former self. At times, she's a stranger to me. She can't make decisions on her own behalf.

Don't get me wrong. My friend is still articulate and can follow a simple conversation. But it's like she's lost and searching at other times.

I see similarities between Trump and my friend. Her sister has Power of Attorney as my friend cannot legally sign her tax returns. She no longer has her car and apartment. Her sister supervises her medical care. (The doctors are not certain if it's dementia, Alzheimer's, chemo brain, or a combination.) Trump has no business returning to the WH where his decisions will not only affect my life and your life, but possibly the survival of the world.

[Karadeniz]

1. It doesnt bother his hsndlers. They know how to manipulate him. Could be

easier for them.

[malaise]

2. Nailed it

Smelvis is more insane than that English king George the WTFwhoever.

[Aristus]

17. Whatever George III's medical problems were, they were made infinitely worse by the quacks who were "treating" him.

I hold no brief for monarchy, but the man was a human being, subjected to the most awful tortures and humiliations in the name of what passed for medicine back then.

[peppertree]

25. You hit the nail on the head, what what

In Cheeto's case, of course, the ailments are more mental than physical (though he's got his share of those too).

Made all the worse because he refuses to admit there's anything wrong with him.

[LymphocyteLover]

8. main problem is his handlers are as evil as he is, if not more so!

[Karadeniz]

13. Yep! Stephen miller and bannon can carry on witj trump as a figurehead.

[LymphocyteLover]

15. I've been looking at Stephen Miller's twitter feed lately.... it is incredibly sick, evil, totally racist propaganda

against Biden.

There's a whole bunch of lesser known Trump cronies that are just as bad too

[wnylib]

21. That is their goal. They will prop Trump up on meds to get through the election

Last edited Sun Jun 23, 2024, 01:12 AM - Edit history (1)

in the belief that they can rig it in his favor and be in charge if they succeed.

I suspect that one reason why even Trumpists are saying that Biden might win is because they know that Trump will be medicated to prevent him from going too far off the rails in the debate. He will be doped up like he was during his trial in NYC.

[NJCher]

24. No, they don't know how to handle him

He can't be handled. He's going to do what he wants and as he gets crazier and crazier, he will be even more outrageous than he is now.

I have the book. I got both the audio and hard copy, and I listened to the audio version for an hour or more today. One of the takeaways is that trump was easy to access. He was happy to talk to this writer because he was lonely. He could not, however, remember the questions from the previous session, so the author had to listen to a lot of stories numerous times. Sometimes he was worried he wouldn't get away from trump.

The author makes it very clear that all trump is in this for is the attention. He craves mass attention. He is going to have that whether the handlers want him to be in public or not.

The handler plan is not going to work.

[samnsara]

3. the maggots dont care.. they want to elect him as prez..prop him up somewhere

..and will be rest assured that bannon, miller and the rest of trumps creepy buddies will make all the moves..

[Farmer-Rick]

4. The family created a fake office for the father Fred

To go to to when his dementia was bad. Fred thought he was still working.

Maybe the Nazis and Federalist filthy-rich will create a fake office for Donny to go to to pretend to massacre more Americans.

[Evolve Dammit]

5. Apprentice stage set

[Lonestarblue]

6. They'll recreate the Oval Office somewhere, as is done in presidential libraries, so he can do pretend president.

Meanwhile the Heritage Foundation leaders will be in 7th heaven with their opportunity to destroy the federal government and the country. They are the ones pressuring Trump to choose Vance as VP because he is just as unethical as they are.

[Harker]

10. Put a dead phone on the desk so he can shout insults at democratic world leaders...

and fawn over dictators.

Comic strips in folders marked "classified."

[yardwork]

11. Basically, they have.

They put their puppet in the Oval Office and let him pretend to be president while they loot the world. No wonder billionaires are funding his reelection.

[Ford_Prefect]

7. Two things seem rather obvious. His enablers are deeply invested in propping up Trump's powerful mythology, no matter

how far out of function he is. And...It seems as though someone else is going to run the show, or may already be doing so.

IMO one of his insiders has taken on the role Dick Cheney and Karl Rove performed for W. It is that insidious. It is intended to allow DJT to be the face and the voice of hate and terror, while insuring that once he's elected the Theocracy will roll out on schedule, and with a vengeance. Whoever is chosen for the VP may be the intended office holder. Or it may be someone who is an "adviser" the way Rove was.

This is part of the whole 2025 scenario. The one in which Leonard Leo and all the other connected RW oligarchs who hide behind Trump's chaos and vitriol will indeed become the power behind the throne of the "King of America". They'll be making "Biblically" based policy, ripping up the Constitution, completely erasing the separation of powers, and enforcing the new "Christian" Autocracy declaring Nationalist Monotheism, and Jihad against all the domestic and foreign non-believers ( You, Me, and virtually anyone else they hate).

Make no mistake that they are somehow still Republicans under the skin. They are the worst sort of absolutist true believers who have assembled a cult of DJT to plow over and eliminate all democratic structures and federal guardrails. They are at least as dangerous as the NAZI cult of Hitler was in 1930's Germany.

And the MSM hasn't got a f*****g clue. They can only present this in the context that it is one more "debate" between naturally occurring political forces. The were the same way when the evidence was crystal clear that Nixon and his enablers were crooks of the worst order. They could not present the idea to the public that people with extraordinary money and power had shaped, driven and indeed stolen the election.

[orangecrush]

9. Sums it up perfectly

[marble falls]

12. My great grandfather was clear minded and capable of living alone with one or another of the grand uncles or ...

... aunts checking in at the house every day and taking him to Sunday dinner into his late nineties.

The first sign there was a decline was he claimed Richard Nixon called him everyday. Clear minded about everything else, the family thought someone was pranking him and put a recorder on his phone hoping to catch whoever it was. Most days his phone never rang.

My great uncle Gene retired and came home to live with him when for the first time in anyone's memory that he didn't get his two buckets. one for sand and one for a seat, he didn't change the pattern of his brick sidewalk.

Dementia is a treacherous beast. At least it took Poppy gently. It totally wracked and ruined my grandfather for more than five years. Now my dad. who took loving care of his FiL (my grandfather), is in his nineties and starting to deteriorate very quickly. We got him to sell the house and car in the last two years, and have him in assisted living.

Sometimes old age is no blessing.

[llmart]

19. A big K&R for your last sentence.

The mass media keeps pushing the stories about how people can live well into their nineties with modern medicine and what a plus that will be. I have no desire to live well into my nineties. I live in a senior community and I see what people in their 90's lives are like, even the ones who still have all their mental faculties.

[marble falls]

20. We lived in the early 90s in a small town in Nebraska. We wanted our two girls to have a project besides scouting ...

... that we as a family could do. We decided to box our old magazines and discard some books from the shelves and visit the "old folks" home in town. It was a heart breaking experience. None of them were capable of reading anymore or doing craft projects with what we brought. We were constantly being swarmed by residents who all took took each of us for some relative they missed terribly, family who never visited. We didn't last an half hour. We were all freaked by the experience and the girls, six and eight were overwhelmed and frightened by it.

Fools rush in where family neglects to go. They were all so healthy except in mind, I get why families stayed away, but that only made it worse for the residents who were absolutely starved for touch, conversation, just a smile. Our spirits were willing and our resolves were weak.

My family kept everyone home until medical intervention was needed. My parent's home, like my great-grandfather's home had times when there were four generations living in the house. My grandmother died in our house. My mother died in our house. I sat with my grandfather died in a hospital, and I sat with my granmother when she died. My mother died with only my father in the house about four years ago just after my cancer surgery here in Texas. She went quickly and without pain. But I feel so bad about my dad having to be there alone with her as she passed.

I'm in my mid seventies and I am not the iron man I used to be. One of my brothers has stepped up and is my dad's guardian. He takes very good care of my dad, and I support him 100%. It seems my dad is failing. And I am sad and depressed I can't be in Arizona helping to take care of one of the greatest persons I've ever known. When I talk to him on the phone, it only underlines how quickly it all turns to shit for us. He is failing, an sadly not severely enough for him to not know how badly.

Aging is not for the weak. And advances in keeping us alive in a lot of ways makes it worse. My father has told me he wishes he could die.

I've told my wife who's kept me alive and taken care of me in ways that might seem gross to younger folk, with no complaint, no sign of regret, that when I get to be too much to stick me in the veteran's home. But who will be there to take of her when I am gone? Our kids are in three far corners of the country away from us.

Sorry to lay this all on you. But it is commentary, not complaint. I have no regrets about my life, what's happening now is part of the deal, as was all the wonderful goodness I've been showered with in my life.

[llmart]

22. I'm always interested in people's stories, so don't be sorry at all.

My mother died in her bed in our house. She had cancer and I was the last one to see her alive. I was 17. My father was asleep in another room and I had heard her crying out for pain meds, so I went to her, then I went back to my room, but didn't really fall asleep. It was in the wee hours of the morning. She was 55. It was the first time I'd ever been to a funeral. She was in such pain as she was dying and she asked us to help her die multiple times. I swore I would never do that to my children if I had any which I did. My father died 4 years later of a massive heart attack. He was 60. He refused to have open heart surgery. It was still in it's infancy at that point and his kids were all grown and gone so he didn't have much to live for.

Medical advances are amazing as are some of the technologies that make surgery much less invasive and easier to recover from. However, at least for myself, I have lived a very good life and my kids are no longer kids (54 and 50), and they are both very self-sufficient and successful. I've done everything I set out to do and then some, and coming from the background I did, I have been extremely fortunate. I am 75 and have lived so many more years than either of my parents did, so whatever my body decides to do as I age I'll accept, but I do not want any heroic efforts to keep me alive.

My best friend always tells me that I'll more than likely live to be at least 90 since I've always taken very good care of myself. I'm fit and healthy and active with no health issues yet. I keep telling her, "If I'd have known I might live to be 90, I wouldn't have taken such good care of myself." In jest, of course.

[marble falls]

23. We are set on the path and then we get to run it. I was never sick until I got sick 12 years ago ...

... and I've been fortunate. VA has taken amazing care of me, sometime I wonder if all the treatments they give an aging me isn't actually a benign version of "heroic measures'. My surgeon for my bladder cancer told me there was a treatment that could give me three or four extra months. I told him no, that that three or four months were not enough to justify hanging in. Five years later and the cancer seems gone. I survived two cancers.

I'm not ready to check out. I've always felt I could get 100. But now I wonder at what cost, for what benefit if my mind left me at 80 0r 90?

Getting old is easier if one does not contemplate the implication and possibilities. I am satisfied with who I am and what I've accomplished. I have no desire for any redoes. A lot of things could have been so much worse. A lot of what I felt when I was younger as heartbreaks for me were actually disaster for others that I was only in the periphery of. Bad things weren't happening to me when they were definitely happening to others I loved.

If I check out tonight, my life has been good.

[Saoirse9]

14. Mashed potatoes for brains

I keep thinking they can't hide it much longer.

[TBF]

16. MAGA doesn't care because his handlers will push their religious plans -

and the uber wealthy don't care because the handlers will make sure their tax rates go down.

After the attempted coup and all of his felonies he shouldn't be anywhere near the oval office, but because of those 2 camps he does have a chance this Nov.

[JoseBalow]

18. Is that like dropping the kids off at the pool?

[Maru Kitteh]

26. Self Delete . . wrong post

Delete . . wrong post

[GenThePerservering]

27. Not sure that going to nursing homes

and "senior communities" are going to give anyone a true picture of old age.