Confabulation

[durangodawood]

Yes, of course.

Biden promised that he would serve one term. After 2 years, he should have confirmed that fact and that he wouldn't stand for re-election.

I agree. But that was hardly obvious from the post I quoted where you said he should step down mid-term.

 

[mark46]

I agree. But that was hardly obvious from the post I quoted where you said he should step down mid-term.

fair enough

ty for making it clear for everyone

 

[FireDragon76]

Trump was never a morally serious person in the first place. To lie, you actually have to care about the truth. What Trump is, is far more corrosive. I can't even use the word on this forum, but let's just say it's akin to "nonsense artist".

 

[JSRG]

Biden was persuaded to step down on his own.

Biden never stepped down. He just withdrew his attempt to run for re-election. Quite different.

 

[DaisyDay]

‘He has trouble completing a thought’: bizarre public appearances again cast doubt on Trump’s mental acuity

Joe Biden was hounded for his age-related gaffes, but Trump’s increasingly strange behavior has largely been ignored

www.theguardian.com

Over the weekend Trump, during a meeting with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, abruptly switched from discussing immigration to saying this: “The other thing I say to Europe: we’ve – we will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States. They’re killing us. They’re killing the beauty of our scenery.”

Trump proceeded to speak, non-stop and unprompted, for two minutes about windmills, claiming without evidence that they drive whales “loco” and that wind energy “kills the birds” (the proportion of birds killed by turbines is tiny compared with the number killed by domestic cats and from flying into power lines).

The abrupt changes in conversation are an example of Trump “digressing without thinking – he’ll just switch topics without self-regulation, without having a coherent narrative”, said Harry Segal, a senior lecturer in the psychology department at Cornell University and in the psychiatry department at Weill Cornell Medicine.
[/ondent]

 

[Oompa Loompa]

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5429516-trump-confabulation-dementia-signs/

Confabulation is sometimes called “honest lying,” because the person doing it genuinely believes what he’s saying, even if it is obviously and patently false. A person confabulates when they are telling completely invented stories that don’t provide them any particular tangible benefit. In other words, it’s not like lying to try and get out of a speeding ticket. ​

​

Confabulation isn’t misremembering a date or forgetting something. The mistakes of memory we are all subject to become confabulation when people remember false information in vivid detail — detail so vivid and complete that people who don’t know otherwise often believe what they are hearing is true. ​

​

In older people, confabulation is one of the clearest early signs of dementia. The day you witness someone confabulate is often the day you are forced to admit to yourself that a beloved parent needs help, and that all the little slips and oddities you’ve been seeing can no longer be rationalized away. ​

It's always been a quandary to deal with President Trump's constant lying as we try to determine whether he knows he's lying or whether he believes the obviously untrue things he says. Is it 25th Amendment time yet?

I believe this is wishful thinking. If Biden can sleep his way through his presidency while Vice President Auto-Pen takes the reigns, Trump will do just fine.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Trump was never a morally serious person in the first place. To lie, you actually have to care about the truth. What Trump is, is far more corrosive. I can't even use the word on this forum, but let's just say it's akin to "nonsense artist".

Like a salesman?

 

[DaisyDay]

I believe this is wishful thinking.

No, I'd rather not have a president noticeably slipping into dementia. How do you explain his confabulations?

If Biden can sleep his way through his presidency while Vice President Auto-Pen takes the reigns, Trump will do just fine.

Sadly, poor Donald isn't doing fine. For a Wharton School graduate, he has a dim grasp on how numbers and percentages work:

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1952159932964540782

 

[FAITH-IN-HIM]

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5429516-trump-confabulation-dementia-signs/

Confabulation is sometimes called “honest lying,” because the person doing it genuinely believes what he’s saying, even if it is obviously and patently false. A person confabulates when they are telling completely invented stories that don’t provide them any particular tangible benefit. In other words, it’s not like lying to try and get out of a speeding ticket. ​

​

Confabulation isn’t misremembering a date or forgetting something. The mistakes of memory we are all subject to become confabulation when people remember false information in vivid detail — detail so vivid and complete that people who don’t know otherwise often believe what they are hearing is true. ​

​

In older people, confabulation is one of the clearest early signs of dementia. The day you witness someone confabulate is often the day you are forced to admit to yourself that a beloved parent needs help, and that all the little slips and oddities you’ve been seeing can no longer be rationalized away. ​

It's always been a quandary to deal with President Trump's constant lying as we try to determine whether he knows he's lying or whether he believes the obviously untrue things he says. Is it 25th Amendment time yet?

While I disagree with many of President Trump's policies, he was legitimately elected by the American people and has the constitutional authority to serve as president for the next four years. Unless he commits an impeachable offense, he should remain in office until January 20, 2029. If Democrats or others oppose his actions, they should aim to win back Congress in 2026 and use legislative power to counter his agenda. This reflects how American democracy functions—the 25th Amendment exists for rare and extreme circumstances, which are not present today.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

This particular thread is about Trump's confabulation. Biden is off-topic. Thank you for your future cooperation on this point.

Nah, sorry...that's an unfair ground rule to enforce in this context lol.

Precedent is important in legal matters.

If people were adamant that Biden (in his 2023/2024 condition) hadn't hit the threshold for invoking that process, than Trump hasn't hit that threshold yet.

Policy differences aside, Trump isn't giving that "tired, confused, old man" vibe... There is a difference between "incapable of governing" vs. "governing while being wrong, but doing the things your voters elected you to do".


Plus, it would be political theater either way

If invoked, the vice president becomes acting president. If the president disputes it, Congress must decide the issue within 21 days. A two-thirds vote in both chambers is required to keep the vice president as acting president. If that threshold isn’t met, the president resumes office.


Do you honestly think such a measure would get 2/3 support from both chambers?

If we're going to use lying, doublespeak, and misrepresenting numbers as a basis for invoking that process, we'll likely never have another president that gets to serve a full term.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

But you did not point to any confabulation on Biden's part. Merely saying, "But Biden!" is off topic. Do you have anything to say about not Biden?

The reference points are in the OP.

This thread is about Trump, not Biden. You had your say, and then some, about Biden. There are a plethora of threads already about Biden and whether or not he was fit for office. This thread is about Trump, confabulation and the 25th Amendment.

From Mr. I Went to Wharton:

Can you explain why confabulation would be a 25th amendment invoking situation and not, let's say, not being able to remember where he was or who he was speaking to at any given moment to the point where unelected aids, staffers, and Vice President Auto-Pen had to run the country for him?

 

[Oompa Loompa]

No, I'd rather not have a president noticeably slipping into dementia. How do you explain his confabulations?

Sadly, poor Donald isn't doing fine. For a Wharton School graduate, he has a dim grasp on how numbers and percentages work:

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1952159932964540782

Prove they are confabulations and not exaggerations.

 

[probinson]

While I disagree with many of President Trump's policies, he was legitimately elected by the American people and has the constitutional authority to serve as president for the next four years. Unless he commits an impeachable offense, he should remain in office until January 20, 2029. If Democrats or others oppose his actions, they should aim to win back Congress in 2026 and use legislative power to counter his agenda. This reflects how American democracy functions—the 25th Amendment exists for rare and extreme circumstances, which are not present today.

Well said.

It will be interesting to see if the Democrats learn their lesson in time for the mid-terms. If they continue down this self-defeating path, even lower approval ratings will follow and a victory in 2026 seems highly questionable.

 

[Bradskii]

Prove they are confabulations and not exaggerations.

'I agree with you 1,000%'
That's an exaggeration. We're all familiar with someone saying that.

'You know, we've cut drug prices by 1200, 1300, 1400, 1,500%. I don't mean 50% or 25%. I mean 1400, 1,500%'
That's the risible, rambling, random, stream-of-consciousness gibberish of someone with no common sense or the slightest grasp of maths. And we're all familiar with Trump saying things like that.

Saying it's a confabulation is being polite. I'd take it if I were you.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

'I agree with you 1,000%'
That's an exaggeration. We're all familiar with someone saying that.

'You know, we've cut drug prices by 1200, 1300, 1400, 1,500%. I don't mean 50% or 25%. I mean 1400, 1,500%'
That's the risible, rambling, random, stream-of-consciousness gibberish of someone with no common sense or the slightest grasp of maths. And we're all familiar with Trump saying things like that.

Saying it's a confabulation is being polite. I'd take it if I were you.

I wouldn't call it polite. Just a liberal desperate attempt to find something to remove Trump from office. But yeah...Trump exaggerates a lot.

 

[Bradskii]

I wouldn't call it polite. Just a liberal desperate attempt to find something to remove Trump from office. But yeah...Trump exaggerates a lot.

As I said, it's not possible to stretch the definition of 'exaggeration' to within a few light years of what he actually said. It was plainly and simply idiotic. Utterly nonsensical. But I don't think anyone is going to say 'Trump hasn't got the intelligence and he hasn't got the ability to formulate a simple sentence that my grandkid would have no problem with' and therefore he should be removed from office. But it's just a single example of the type of mind that a guy has who has the nuclear codes has got. It's not an exaggeration to say that that fact is incredibly unsettling.

Now you're not going to admit to that. But I would guess, and I'm being serious here, that at times like his '1500% drop in prices' when you heard it you were doing an internal eye roll, thinking 'oh no, I hope nobody picks up on that'. Because you know as a fact that it shows him in a bad light. There's no denying that.

If a friend of yours said the same thing you'd have a chuckle at his expense - 'Wow, Jim - were you off sick when they did percentages in school? Hey guys, listen to this!' But it would be a one off. Old Jim would be suitably embarrassed but you'd have a quick laugh and let it pass. But if Jim was constantly coming out with junk like that on a regular basis then you'd be talking to your friends and suggesting that something might be wrong. You might say that a few years ago, Jim - like Trump, was pretty sharp. Could string a sentence together. Was clear and concise. But now there's a significant difference.

I've got two friends who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And nobody needed a diagnosis to tell us all that the smart sassy woman and the fit and intelligent guy have gone very steeply downhill over the last 12 months. But it's not a one off comment. It's not a one off example of clouded thinking or a clumsy comment. It's the all too regular ramblings of a mind that's deteriorating at a depressing speed.

But then again, I may be wrong. Maybe it's not a disease as such. Trump is a long way from being the sharpest tool in the box and that coupled with his age is finding him out. Just like it did with Biden, although Biden's always been a very smart guy...so please don't hit me with a whataboutism in that regard. Coming to terms with Trump's failings is the topic. Not blaming others for not doing the same with Biden.

 

[DaisyDay]

Nah, sorry...that's an unfair ground rule to enforce in this context lol.

Aw, unfair? The only way you can find to discuss the topic of Trump's alleged decline is to resort to, "But Biden!!".

Precedent is important in legal matters.

Are you actually discussing the legal precedent or merely moaning, "But Biden!!"?

If people were adamant that Biden (in his 2023/2024 condition) hadn't hit the threshold for invoking that process, than Trump hasn't hit that threshold yet.

Yet. This "yet" is the topic of this particular thread. Is it possible for you stick to this actual topic instead of crying, "But Biden!!"?

Policy differences aside, Trump isn't giving that "tired, confused, old man" vibe... There is a difference between "incapable of governing" vs. "governing while being wrong, but doing the things your voters elected you to do".

Agreed, he doesn't give "tired, confused, old man" vibe, but that isn't the topic. Confabulation is a sign of dementia, not simple aging.

Presumably, should it come to that, Vance would continue to do the things his voters elected him to do.

Plus, it would be political theater either way

What isn't these days? But that should not be an excuse not to address this problem.

If invoked, the vice president becomes acting president. If the president disputes it, Congress must decide the issue within 21 days. A two-thirds vote in both chambers is required to keep the vice president as acting president. If that threshold isn’t met, the president resumes office.

Do you honestly think such a measure would get 2/3 support from both chambers?

It depends on how this progresses. If this continues to worsen, and it has worsened, then it may very well happen.

If we're going to use lying, doublespeak, and misrepresenting numbers as a basis for invoking that process, we'll likely never have another president that gets to serve a full term.

Clearly, you are missing the point: confabulation is not lying, not doublespeak (we got that in spades last term). Misrepresenting numbers is one thing, inability to understand numbers is quite another, probably not ideal in a president of an HOA let alone an entire country.