Latest / Surviving-ISH Podcast / Is the Donald Trump Losing the Thread? | A Personal Perspective on the "Maga-Word Salad"

Transcript

Is the Donald Trump Losing the Thread? | A Personal Perspective on the "Maga-Word Salad" · Surviving-ISH Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's up guys?
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I first want to start out by saying that um it's been several days, I guess, since I've released a new little mini episode politics edition.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that people are liking it.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: However, the last one I released, I had like very little interaction with the topic that I discussed.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: But everyone was like, were you whispering?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: What was wrong with your voice?
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm new to all this.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not used to doing a lot of talking about things that I want to have facts about and then discussing it, editing it, and doing multiple episodes at one time, and I lost my voice.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I get I don't know if I should completely blame it on podcasting because I'm in a place where like pawn is bad.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was 80 degrees yesterday.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Today I had a like a sweater vest on.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that probably played a factor too.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So people were asking, like, are you whispering?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Are you like, why do you have to be so quiet?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are you in a library?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, my voice was just not working, and I'm not used to having conversations recording myself talking uh when I'm only talking to a camera.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So so this is very new to me.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: But, anyways, let's get into why we're here.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I did receive an email from someone, and I loved all of this to the point that I want to share the story with you.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I do have their permission to share this.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the email starts out with, I've been sitting on this for a while because it's hard to talk about family, it's hard to talk about the people we've looked up to our whole lives.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm seeing something lately that feels familiar.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a type of familiar that keeps me up at night.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you about my grandfather.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: He is 79 years old.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you knew him 10 years ago, he was the force of nature.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was the guy who could walk into a room and he would own it.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was loud, he was funny, he was sharp.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: He had this way of talking where you just believed whatever he said because he said it with so much conviction.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was a boss.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was his identity.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: About two years ago, the glitches started.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: At first we laughed it off.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: We called it senior moments.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: He had been in the middle of a story, a story he had told a thousand times, and he would just stop.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: His eyes would go flat for a second, and then he'd sat back and keep going.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: But he'd be on a totally different topic.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you tried to correct him, he didn't just get embarrassed, he got angry.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing people don't tell you about 79-year-old men losing their grip.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Their confession turns into rage because they're terrified of being found out.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Lately it's gotten different.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's the word salads.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'll sit with him on the porch and we'll start talking about his business or the way things used to be.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly his sentences don't have a floor anymore.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: He'll start a thought about a person, jump to an appliance, mention a city he hasn't been in in 40 years, and then end with a word that doesn't even exist.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: But he says it all with the same boss energy.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: He looks at me like he just gave me a masterclass on logic, but I'm sitting there realizing that my hero is speaking a language that only exists in his own fading mind.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: The most heartbreaking part is the wandering.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Not physically wandering, but mentally wandering.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: He'll be talking about a serious problem and suddenly he starts obsessing over something totally irrelevant.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: He'll spend ten minutes talking about the beautiful texture of a tablecloth or how nobody knows that water is wet.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: He repeats phrases over and over.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a disaster.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a total disaster.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Never seen anything like it kind of disaster.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: He thinks he's being empathetic.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I realize he's just out of words.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I watched the people around him, my family.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them were in total denial.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: They nod and say, Oh, grandpa is just being colorful today.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or he's just tired.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: They ignore the fact that he just confused his daughter for his wife.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: They ignore the fact that he can't remember what happened 10 minutes ago, but can rant on for an hour about the grudge from 1985.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're so protective of his legacy and his image.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're willing to let a man who can't find his own car keys pretend he's still in charge of the family estate.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a specialized kind of cruelty.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Pretending a sick person is fine just because you're scared of what happens when the strong man is gone.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I see it in the world.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I see people standing behind a man of that same age, 79, 80 years old.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I see them ignoring the blank stares.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I see them cheering for the word salad because it sounds tough, quote unquote.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I see them making excuses for the confusion, the slurred speech, the moments where the person behind the podium seems to forget where they are for a split second before the bravado kicks back in.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've reached a point where quote unquote strong has become a mask for quote unquote struggling.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that line that she put there.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm gonna have to remember that.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: When my grandfather mixes up names or starts talking about electric sharks or whatever thing crosses his mind, I don't hate him.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love him, but I don't let him drive my car.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't let him make the big decisions for the family because I care about him enough to admit he isn't there anymore.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we so afraid to admit when a mind is tired?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we treat cognitive decline like a difference of opinion?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Dementia isn't a political stance, it's a biological reality.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't care about your ego, it doesn't care about your power, and it definitely doesn't care about your brand.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It takes the nuance at first.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then it takes the memory, then it takes the logic, until all that's left is the loudest version of a person's personality stripped from any actual substance.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I look at my grandfather and I see a man who needs a quiet room and a hand to hold.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I see a man who shouldn't be under the bright lights and carry the weight of the world.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: When you see someone, anyone struggling to finish a coherent thought or lashing out because they're confused or repenting the same three adjectives because the rest are gone.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Don't look at their jersey.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Don't look at their team.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Look at them like they're your grandfather.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you actually love that person, you wouldn't be cheering for them to stay in the spotlight.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be praying for someone to walk them off the stage.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just a granddaughter watching a man I love disappear.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't help but wonder how many of you are watching the exact same thing happen on your TV screens and calling it leadership.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, this was beautifully written.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sending this in.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Listeners, thank you all uh for listening to this.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the writer is anonymous, but maybe we can all share the story, like and love it.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was beautifully written and mind blowing.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, guys, I'll see you all in a couple of days as long as I don't lose my voice again.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Good night, guys.