It surprises me when I see people call Trump senile given how far Biden got before most people were willing to acknowledge it at all.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things you can justifiably call Trump. He just doesn't seem senile in any way similar to those in my life I've watched go down that road.
I don't think it's really senility. I'm sure you've probably read an article by a news author about a technical subject that you know very well that just gets a lot of basic details/pov wrong as a whole. I'm pretty sure it's that, but with someone who has to take in 10x the amount of information on a daily basis. Combine that with an outsized, fragile ego and you get what you get from Trump. A vague understanding of things observed/read/viewed in passing combined with everything else.
> For the silent down voters, when has Trump shown signs of senility?
For quite a while. Even compared to the already generally incoherent speaking style of his first term, his speech has been unfocussed, his grasp of facts worse, etc., during his second term. Even before that, the cognitive test he bragged about passing his first term isn't sonething that is ever indicated without symptoms of cognitive impairment, his speaking style, grasp of facts, etc., in even his first term shows significant decline from his earlier public life, heck even his extreme forward leaning stance, while it can have other source, is a symptom of certain kinds of dementia.
Aside from fairly extreme media bias issues stemming from business and political interests of media owners that became undeniable with the public active intervention of a number of media owners late in the 2024 campaign, he gets a pass for this for a number of reasons, including the fact that critics generally have a lot of bigger fish to fry, some critics see pointing to cognitive dysfunction as mitigating arguments they want to make about conscious moral evil, incoherence and looseness with facts being a noted feature of his speaking style making people less likely to note changes that are changes in degree rather than kind for him, etc.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things you can justifiably call Trump. He just doesn't seem senile in any way similar to those in my life I've watched go down that road.