A.B.O.U.T. Behavior #18 : Always Moving
Because of his ADHD, Mr. Trump moves constantly. On January 8th, when he spoke to the nation about standing down from an all-out war with Iran, and even though he was taking stimulant medication, he persisted with excessive head titling, torso twisting, lectern taps, and assorted squirmings. He was fulfilling one of the formal criteria for ADHD, of being always on the go and appearing to be driven by a motor.
His dilated pupils, restrained gestures (compared to his baseline), and ability to read from the teleprompter in full (if stilted) sentences, without going off on his own riffs, indicates he was once again taking stimulants to appear more presidential. We can’t attribute the dilated pupils to low levels of lighting, since those adjacent to him at the lectern revealed small, constricted, pupils. The medication decreased, but did not eliminate, Mr. Trump’s hyperactivity.
Powerful, charismatic speakers like Hitler, Churchill or Mussolini punctuated their orations with strong, emphatic chopping movements of their arms. While Mr. Trump includes such motions in his repertoire, he always adds a full symphony of additional body shifting, head bobbing, rotating, jazz hands, and other gestures when he talks. Hitler was said to be so compelling that you didn’t even have to know German to be swept along by…
