59 Percent of Americans Think Trump Mentally Incompetent to Be President
His VP and cabinet were not polled.
The Hill (“Most Americans say Trump is mentally, physically unfit to serve effectively: Poll“):
A new poll found that most Americans say they believe President Trump is mentally and physically unfit to serve as commander in chief.
The Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 59 percent of U.S. respondents indicated Trump does not have the mental sharpness it takes to lead the country. Forty percent of respondents said the president is mentally equipped for leadership, and 1 percent of participants skipped the question.
Comparatively, 55 percent of surveyed U.S. adults said Trump is not in good enough physical health to serve as president, while 44 percent disagreed and 1 percent of survey participants skipped the question.
More than half of respondents, 54 percent, said they do not believe the president is a strong leader.
Sixty-seven percent of survey participants also said they don’t think Trump carefully considers important decisions.
Even in a polarized age, these are disturbing results. When three-fifths of the country thinks you’re mentally unfit to lead, it’s a problem.
Nor is the poll in question an outlier. A few weeks back, Peter Baker (“Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate“) cited a whole slew of the President’s former allies raising concerns and noted:
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in February found that 61 percent of Americans think Mr. Trump has become more erratic with age and just 45 percent say he is “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges,” down from 54 percent in 2023. Roughly half of Americans, 49 percent, deemed Mr. Trump too old to be president when asked in a YouGov poll in September, up from 34 percent in February 2024, while just 39 percent said he was not too old.
These numbers are comparable to the 65% in a June 2024 CBS/YouGov poll who believed President Joe Biden lacked “the mental and cognitive health to serve as President,” a number which declined to 72% at the end of the month, pursuant to a horrendous performance in the first general election debate. There is no Nancy Pelosi to push Trump out.
Interestingly, while I saw the WaPo poll when it came out two days ago, I didn’t pay it much attention owing to the headline, “Trump disapproval reaches new high, Post-ABC-Ipsos poll finds.” The result is highlighted in the report, but deep down, without an accompanying graphic. Talk about burying your lede!
Looking at the crosstabs, the responses are significantly better among Whites (50-50) but considerably worse among Blacks (85-14), Hispanics (72-27), and the 18-29 age group (69-31). A whopping 93 percent of Democrats say he’s mentally incompetent, compared to 32 percent of non-MAGA Republicans and only 4 percent of MAGA Republicans. A majority of every education background says he’s mentally incompetent; the most favorable, oddly, is those with “some college” (55-44).
It should be noted that public opinion on this matters not a whit, practically speaking. Unless Vice President Vance and a majority of the cabinet agree, this is not grounds for removal.
Over at LGM Paul Campos excerpts and gift links Thomas Edsall’s column in NYT. Edsall references “A clinical psychiatrist I have known for more than 30 years” on Trump and on the nature of psychopathy.
Edsall is concerned about what Trump might try to do in the midterms. His title is a quote of Trump, ‘When You Think of It, We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’
Also, too, I hope Gen. Caine has thought to miscopy a couple characters on Trump’s nuclear code card.
Alternate headline: 41% of Americans can’t see what’s in front of their noses.
Screw every one of those voters who now claim regret that after voting for Trump. Fuck every single one of them. All the information was there for anyone to see that this man was/is incapable of basic human decency, empathy, and common sense, much less having the mental ability to be a functioning president of the United States. So, yes. Fuck every single one of you Trump voters now having remorse.
Several studies have shown that the a majority of Americans between the ages of 16-74 read below a sixth grade level.
54% of these people (130M) have problems processing and understanding anything complex. Half the population struggles with complex texts, with 21% (45 million) classified as functionally illiterate. The average American adult reading level is generally considered to be 7th to 8th grade, well below most industrialized nations. This is the highest recorded level of illiteracy since they started tracking it.
The country is so screwed.
https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-facts/#:~:text=Adult%20literacy%20levels%20in%20the,%2D%20to%208th%2Dgrade%20level.
@gVOR10:
Yes, Trump is a psychopath. As I’ve been insisting for more than a decade now. Not just a narcissist, a psychopath. Not just a sociopath, a psychopath. He’s not just transgressive or manipulative, and he’s not just doing things for shock value, or owning the libs, he’s a fucking psychopath. Take sociopathy, add narcissism, an absolute inability to feel empathy, a complete absence of kindness or pity, pile on the rage, and the hate, and you have yourself a psychopath.
And who loves him? White Evangelical Christians. WEC’s who have sat and listened to dozens of sermons on the subject of false prophets, and yet somehow came to equate this loathsome pig with Jesus Christ. This man who exhibits none of the virtues Christ preached in the sermon on the mount. This sexual predator. This thief, liar, racist, woman-hating, stupid piece of human garbage, that’s who they see as Christ’s envoy to save humanity.
Freedom of religion does not equate to respect for religion, it does not demand we stifle criticism. White Evangelicals are to Christianity what West Bank Settlers are to Judaism or ISIS is to Islam. The people who should be standing up to them, should have been standing up to them for decades now, lack the spine or the integrity to do more than issue the occasional soft mewling sound of protest, and leave the job to the non-believers – who will of course be attacked by the ‘good Christians’ who should have been doing the job themselves.
There’s an Oval Office event going on RIGHT NOW that is bizarre and weird. The evidence is incontrovertible at this point.
@Jen:
If every single Democrat running for office doesn’t tie every single Republican [they’re running against] to Donald Trump it will be political malpractice.
The White House event right now is straight out of “Idiocracy”. The level of inane bullshit coming out of Trump’s mouth is outrageous, even for Trump.
@EddieInCA: @Jen: Ezra Klein at NYT (gift link) has an interview today with one Helena Rosenblatt, history prof at CUNY and author of The Lost History of Liberalism. One of her themes is that historically liberality had a strong element of self-improvement, and encouraging self-improvement in others. An ideal the Founders saw as necessary to democracy. And one you, Eddie, note we’re not doing very well at. (She talks about Lincoln as a liberal exemplar. I would see Lincoln and Obama as examples of very ambitious people whose liberal ambition was to be the best Lincoln or Obama they could be. Not to get rich.)
She also notes that historically liberals have tended to be Protestant. This would seem to flow logically from the schism being over reading the Bible and forming your own belief instead of the priest telling you what to believe. You, Michael, talk about religion as the root of much evil. I mostly agree, but quibble it’s not so much specific religious beliefs as that religion is where youth are trained to firmly believe without evidence. Something stronger with your WECs than with mainstream Protestants. Or modern western Catholics.
I’d characterize the interview as more interesting than convincing, but worth a read. They both, without crediting Karl Popper, note Popper’s paradox of tolerance. A tolerant society can tolerate anything except intolerance. Intolerance will destroy a tolerant society. For which see current events.
@EddieInCA:
Ruining public education and public schools is a basic Republican project, a very successful project. Among the perceived benefits:
-) Badly educated people are more easily manipulated by propaganda.
-) Religious schools become more relatively attractive.
Authoritarianism does not run very deep in Protestant circles, precisely because so many of those denominations were created as a rebellion against authority.
It would seem though, that authoritarianism has gained some footholds in Protestant groups, though I would hesitate to tie it to any specific denomination. It tends more to schism existing groups. Is this the result of some influence op, or a more natural development? Probably the latter, though I don’t understand the mechanism.
Meanwhile, Catholicism has a very strong authoritarian streak, and always has. Not all Catholics ascribe to it, but the authoritarian side has been energized by 50 years of fighting abortion as a Great Evil. Because the Church knows right from wrong, rank-and-file members don’t get to decide this, it requires the highest level of academic study and devotion to God and prayer. Something something. And may it never be that we would vote on Right and Wrong. These were handed down on clay tablets that you aren’t allowed to read for yourself.
I probably sound in that last paragraph more down on Catholicism than I really am. It’s more that I’m down on a particular strain of it, which pretty much every Catholic in government seems to adhere to these days. This is not an accident.
@Jen:
More bizarre and weird than usual? I am reassured that Iran does not have kamakazi dolphins.
On a different, if related note. I think it’s likely that this 59% number has to get over 70 percent before anybody tries to do anything about it. At 70 percent, things like impeachment are on the table, they are possible.