What the Information Operation about Joe Biden’s Age Looks Like
One reason Joe Biden is behind in the polls, I’m fairly convinced, is because Democrats relentlessly participate in an organized campaign to use Biden’s age to dehumanize him.
Whether it involves making reasonable critiques of the nonsense focus by the press on Biden’s age, loud fights about his age and how one might replace him, or the collapsing of all problems with Robert Hur’s report into his geezer comments, Democrats talk about Biden’s age all the time, even while complaining that the NYT does too.
Democrats talk about Biden’s age instead of all the other things (Gaza is an important exception) they should be talking about, whether they want to replace Biden or not. Want Kamala Harris to replace Joe Biden at the top of the ticket? You’re best served to talk about the historic successes of the Biden-Harris Administration. Want Gretchen Whitmer or someone else to replace both Biden and Harris? You’re best served to talk about the success of Democratic policies. Happy to have Biden continue what he’s doing or even just resigned that he’s not going to be replaced? You sure as hell should be talking about the remarkable successes his Administration has had.
Not Democrats. They’re talking about Biden’s age instead.
Out of frustration, I went on Xitter and … talked about Biden’s age.
The post went, by my modest standards, viral: as of this moment, 6.3K likes, 1.7K RTs, 65 QTs, and just north of 106K views.
Because Xitter is a toxic cesspool full of brainless MAGAts and bots and trolls, my post elicited a flood of replies — effectively I jumped myself right into a cesspool of far right memes about Joe Biden’s age.
Perhaps about a fifth of the replies attacked me because I posted this, including the always stale attack on my moniker that I should be called empty head. A few people even suggested I was a bot.
There were a number of gross memes, often with photos shopped to make Biden look older.
A number of the memes were racialized.
Both memes and posts stated as fact that Biden had dementia.
A good many featured pictures (again, often altered) of Biden at the beach, as if going to the beach is something only seniors do.
Some, thinking they were being smart, asked, “What did he accomplish in the last week?”
The was the historic drop in crime rates. There was the student loan debt relief.
There was his yearly physical, which shows arthritis in his feet continues to be a problem, but the root canal he had over the year required only local numbing.
There was the “intense” meeting Biden hosted, at which he, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, and Hakeem Jeffries attempted to explain that the House had to fund Ukraine support to avoid a sure Ukrainian loss, the fracturing of NATO, and the conclusion by authoritarians of the world that the US was a soft, fat country that had lost its way.
And, yes, there were the inadequate efforts to reign in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, the urgent topic that should be the focus of criticism. The White House hosted Israeli cabinet member Benny Gantz in what Bibi Netanyahu made clear was an unauthorized visit, but President Biden was not described as participating.
We know how the far right engages in troll and meme warfare to dictate press coverage. As Microchip described at Douglass Mackey’s trial, it didn’t matter whether the memes he was making go viral were true; what mattered was to “creat[e] the appearance of some controversy … [t]o cause as much chaos as possible so that that would bleed over to Hillary Clinton and diminish her chance of winning.” Those efforts have only gotten more professionalized since 2016. Elon Musk has made that far easier to do on Xitter. If anything, mainstream outlets like NYT have only proven easier to bully into chasing right wing narratives since.
The right wing noise machine turning Biden’s walks on the beach, walks he has been taken for over a half-century of living in Delaware, into some sign of abnormality will run rampant regardless of what Democrats talk about. But the choice to obsess about Biden’s age instead of the things his experience has allowed him to accomplish is equally a choice to participate in an information operation designed to dehumanize the President and drown out any discussion of his accomplishments.
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Perfect timing. Thank you for this post. I needed it. Yesterday, the NYTimes headlined Biden’s age with a chart showing the percentage preference for t—- over Biden on this question. It irked me so, it felt like it had been up there for days. It seemed the Times was begging for clicks through the cheapest of tactics. Headline news? I refused to open to the article and hope others did the same.
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Salon’s article on Trump’s dementia is spot on. My mother was diagnosed with dementia 10 years ago. Trump’s speech patterns and facial expression have been reminding me of my mother in the throes of dementia since 2020. And it’s quickly getting worse. I know why Ivanka and Melania have deserted him – people with dementia can’t bear people that disagree, so only “yes men” Eric and Don Jr are left. https://www.salon.com/2024/03/01/like-someone-pulled-the-metaphorical-plug-dr-john-gartner-on-accelerating-dementia/
Marcy,
“The Russian Disinformation Attack and the Disappearing Rabbit Trick” by Teri Kanefield. ““The more I think about it,” Heather Cox Richardson said on Twitter this week, “the more it seems the main story of the past decade has been Russian disinformation to undermine U.S. democracy.”. Two quotes supporting your thread by empowered women.
Viewing the US media landscape from 35k foot elevation level the RU disinformation campaign is alive and well and yes matured since 2014 when Prigozhin managed the effort. Poll numbers do indicate the vast effectiveness of real time insertion of amplification efforts at focusing attention on negative “A” vs positive “B” example. Alabama SC’s ruling granting IVF “freezer babies” rights compared to “extra uterine embryo’s” -non rights- due to ectopic pregnancy is a perfect example of R’s administration’s goals for women in general and how issue A sucks all the oxygen away from issue B. Now is the time to take action in support of your candidates. We are in this together.
What the Russians don’t think of first, they will jump on when they see a fracture arising. I sympathize deeply with all those young angry voices behind the “Uncommitted” movement, but I doubt they understand how quickly malign forces have already seized their bandwagon, supercharged it, and prepared to surge an entire election season of so-called protest votes that will do nothing but help Trump.
And by nothing, I mean they will do less than nothing to help any Palestinians suffering in Gaza or the West Bank.
National polling lately is looking more like “Push-Polls” of a decade ago. RW media harps incessantly on Biden’s age, then the polling organizations ask if Biden is too old to effectively serve as POTUS. It’s a vague and loaded question that is likely to return negative results. When the poll results come in as expected, it feeds RW media’s narrative. That’s how push-polls operate. They also use it for crime and border security polling.
It was one thing when those polls were limited to campaign operations. Now they have expanded to supposedly non-partisan polling groups.
My favorite is how the NYT/Siena poll published this past weekend showed Dean Phillips with 12%, as if that’s not completely laughable.
I’d be surprised if Dean Phillps broke 10% within his own family!
I don’t have adequate words to express my gratitude for this pertinent, propitious column.
To this salient point (Marcy Wheeler wrote):
“And, yes, there were the inadequate efforts to reign in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, the urgent topic that should be the focus of criticism.”
I left Xitter over two years ago and have now gone two weeks without the equally toxic, methadone-like WaPo comment section…for my own well being.
While I’ve petitioned my government over its support and complicity in this extremist Israeli government’s egregious violations of IHL, IML, the Foreign Assistance Act, and the Leahy Laws since mid October, I filled in the “Biden” (/Harris) dot on my CA primary ballot…using a prodigious amount of black ink.
Were it not for our Senate seat race and Prop 1, I might have erroneously skipped the primary to vent my frustration over the man-made humanitarian crisis in GAZA.
Admittedly, I was no fan of Joseph Biden before I voted Biden/Harris 2020, however this administration has exceeded my expectations in all other matters.
I am grateful.
As always, thank you Marcy, for your superlative analysis and spot-on perspective.
By focusing on Biden’s age, the disinformation campaign has successfully diverted attention from the more worrisome signs that age and crappy diet and lifestyle are catching up with Trump. I don’t know if foreign powers created the Biden age meme but I would be surprised if their bots and trolls aren’t amplifying the theme.
The NY Times’ weekend of hyping their imperfect poll of 890 people is one of its more disgraceful episodes in the last 30 years. Not only was it the lead story online but it was pushed by emails. I look at the woefully inadequate coverage of the Trump NY fraud trial and the focus on Biden’s age without talking about Trump’s age and wonder whether the news media wants another Trump term.
The strategy by the right wing (Republicans, Russia, the MSM, and the funding oligarchy) is to saturate the political discussion, eliminating substantive dialogue and valid comparisons between the two candidates.
So how to overcome this? Controversial Joe has got to step up! Be a bigger asshole than Trump, force Trump to respond by telling the truth about him.
Joe Biden, himself, must force the issue. Joe’s got to start fighting dirty, smart but dirty. That gets eyeballs.
Use the bully pulpit to take Trump down.
Force the NYT and WAPO to actually show Trump’s dementia in full bloom.
To muzzle Fox with the truth about Trump.
And once Joe has got their ears and eyes, then start the positive campaign.
Joe Biden’s campaign (and the allies of Joe Biden) must use every financial, social and political tool available to them to take the fight to Trump.
Marcy Wheeler wrote :
“One reason Joe Biden is behind in the polls, I’m fairly convinced, is because Democrats relentlessly participate in an organized campaign to use Biden’s age to dehumanize him.”
Using the phrase “Controversial Joe” seems to me to be voluntary participation in the above campaign, however ancillary.
I very much appreciated this piece’s reminder to maintain perspective whilst being subjected to the relentless “RW noise machine”.
For those of us who value civil liberties, and as Yogarhythms noted, “We are in this together.”
Here are a few questions Controversial Joe might ask:
“Why did Donald Trump downplay the COVID pandemic?”
“How can anyone contemplate electing anyone responsible for 600,000 excess deaths in the US during the COVID pandemic?”
“Why wouldn’t Donald Trump wear a mask during the COVID pandemic?”
“Why would anyone ever elect an obviously demented Donald Trump as president?”
“Why did Donald Trump steal top secret documents from the White House?”
and
“Does Donald Trump still have more of the secret documents that he stole?”
“What did Donald Trump say to Putin during their secret meetings?”
Joe Biden (Controversial Joe, Badass Joe, Big Joe) needs to show that he is stronger and tougher than the phony media Trump.
I sure hope the Biden people start campaigning soon. This should be an easy opponent to defeat, but they have to actually do the work.
I’d say “we” not “they” have to actually do the work.
As even Politico notes this morning:
Attention commenter Error Prone:
You’re in auto-moderation until you address the moderator’s note left for you in two previous comments.
Marcy: We know how the far right engages in troll and meme warfare to dictate press coverage. […] Those efforts have only gotten more professionalized since 2016. Elon Musk has made that far easier to do on Xitter.
Yesterday, Rayne boosted this late evening 3/2/24 post which I found interesting:
https://mastodon.social/@JxckS/112029812088919127
Mar 02, 2024, 23:14
10 minutes. Amazing coincidence, yes?
To paraphrase part of a cliche about the unlikelihood of coincidences in public life, looks more like enemy action.
The entities which have monopolized most of the media are run or owned by very far right (dare I say fascist) individuals. Why does everyone seem surprised by how the media is behaving? Only in this atmosphere can newspapers like the NYT or MSNBC be considered liberal media.Did everyone forget about Judith Miller? Or Chris Matthew’s?
The NYT uses the dog-not-barking approach to attacking Biden’s age as well — they didn’t bark about McConnell’s stepping down as Senate minority leader as a possible result of age-related health problems.
source: https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/112033698733368419
When journalism professors call out a news outlet, you’d think the news outlet would step up and improve its work but I wouldn’t count on it.
source: https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/112031540195589810
“Retired after glitching out from age”. That song is not in the Wurlitzer juke box.
In 2020, neither Joe Biden nor Bernie Sanders made my initial under-consideration list of 2020 Democratic presidential nominees, because one of my checklist items was a higher actuarial likelihood of being able to serve as an effective president through the end of two terms. But, of course, I voted for him for president.
Take a full, fair, long look at his presidency, not just the snippets of video that echo through the ultra-right echosphere, designed to elicit the parroted MAGA reactions Marcy highlights today (though similar Democratic parrots are not uncommon).
Biden’s career-long tendency toward bollixed syntax and other verbal misadventures have been well-known for decades, differing little from several other much younger presidents. But his administration’s performance has been more than competent and, in rebuilding alliances and influencing a united front against Russia’s aggression against Europe, likely better than any of his 2020 rivals could have managed.
Given the hand dealt, I think the Biden Administration played it well. I’m satisfied with President Biden’s competence in office and will accept the low odds and potential consequences of that changing before 2029. I remain concerned about his remaining five years (because the actuarial thing is real) but it’s difficult to imagine circumstances in which I would not vote for him again.
Yes, his gait is stiff. At 70, I can’t throw my disc golf driver 300 feet anymore. Neither of those facts has a significant impact in either of us fulfilling our own remaining roles in this world.
His gait’s stiff but he can still annoy his Secret Service detail by forcing them to keep up on a bike.
source: https://www.delawareonline.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2023/08/03/president-biden-bike-ride/12313550002/
Definitely much sexier than Trump, too!
His knees. So much sexy. LOL
So, maybe there should be survey questions like this (LOL):
Do you think Melania believes Donald is sexy?
Do you think Jill believes Joe is sexy?
Can trump ride a bike? somehow i have my doubts.
Yup. Knee issue made me stop running in 2020. But I still bike! With the same smile and, dare I say, the same sexy knees Joe displays in that pic.
For a fit 80 year-old, bicycling and swimming would be easier than walking or running, owing to his arthritis. Just routine.
What’s striking in the NYT’s sustained campaign against Biden, is that it ignores the many, more obvious and serious mental and physical frailties of Trump and McConnell. Its owners want a Republican president – which now means a Fascist state.
Purple Martin, your comment reminded me of something my favorite local public radio host, Colin McEnroe, said on his daily program. It has stuck with me, echoing louder each time: “We don’t so much elect a president as we elect an administration.”
Our celebrity-obsessed culture focuses king-making attention on the individual candidates the two major parties put forward. But no single person can or should run the federal government, and the presidency serves as a test of its incumbent’s executive ability. More than anything else, Biden has excelled at this, with the result being his administration’s towering record of achievements in the face of enormous odds.
I imagine I will be ridiculed for this observation but I believe it is accurate. I will also say I would vote for any Democratic candidate over any Republican candidate for President.
Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow theorizes the brain works with two systems, conventionally System One and System Two. System One is making automatic decisions 24/7 based on heuristic approaches. He opens chapter one with an example of System One operations with a picture of a woman and how the brain automatically defaults to conclusions about the woman and what she is about to do without knowing anything about the situation of the person in the picture.
I believe the same System One operation occurs every time someone sees Joe Biden walking and talking. The brain is making an automatic assessment that he is old and, more importantly, coming to automatic conclusions that associates his”oldness” with an impaired ability to do tasks and jobs not normally associated with people of his age doing as effectively as a younger person. It would be like anyone here going to a nursing home and watching some of the people moving around and interacting. You would automatically make assessments about the physical and mental abilities of the people you are observing based on their appearance of oldness. You can’t help it. The brain makes that assessment every time someone sees Biden and it takes a literal calling of System Two to remember, e.g., he has ankle problems and arthritic feet when he robotically walks in the gait of an old person or he is overcoming a stuttering issue when he speaks with difficulty or slowly. System Two has to overcome System One in a sort of on-going epic battle in the brain.
People here are great users of System Two. Most of the population is not. The polls that say he is “too old” is, to me , a reflection of the power of System One. He reinforces that issue, e.g. with young people, when he gets stubborn as he does with his lack of action re: the destruction in Gaza. Trump does not create that same “oldness” System One issue so when they appear together the difference is reinforced and dramatic in everyone’s brain. No one can stop it.
Trump is feral. He knows what everyone’s brain is thinking when s/he sees Biden. Trump instinctively uses focus on that situation and other situations to reinforce System One thinking about Biden’s “oldness”. That is Biden’s problem. He is not going to overcome it. He has to create a campaign strategy where people will use System Two in some way to overlook their System One Biden biases.
This isn’t a post to dehumanize the President. It is simply an observation about an issue he needs to find some coherent way to address. Right now he is flailing or has decided to leave it to fate and the gods.
You’re ignoring the fact the media plays a key role in feeding imagery of Biden to System One.
It’s the fast-thinking systems that are specifically most vulnerable to manipulation because they are intended to execute conditioned responses.
Reptilian brain. That. But those of us who can do more than execute autonomous functions need to address how to frame Biden to reach that level. We should be well beyond this given how long we’ve had George Lakoff explaining it to us and telling us what works.
George Lakoff is system 2. Frank Luntz is system 1. That is a problem.
Lakoff explains to System 2 what’s going on in System 1. Unfortunately most of us on the left are stuck in System 2 and can’t fight our way out because there wet wiring involved and it’s missing on the left.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/the-yuck-factor/580465/
Get in touch with disgust and fear. I suspect many women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ are already in touch with the visceral nature of the latter but they are too busy dealing with existential threats to calibrate messaging to the right-wing’s disgust center.
Thanks, Rayne. I had not seen that article.
Unfortunately, it suggests that attempts to convince “them” are futile. Unless, perhaps, the disgust circuitry can be rewired, or the response extinguished by repeated exposure to non-MAGA ideas.
I remember the first time I read that study. It hit me like an epiphany: my very way of understanding was essentially making it impossible for me to get those reactive souls motivated by disgust and fear.
Now with eyes wide open, I see it in every micro-expression, before the words either honestly confirm or seek to deny those reactions.
IMO it’s important to grasp that disgust is cultivated. There may be some innate revulsion which triggers responses like that cats display when surprised by a fake snake. But disgust about topics like same-sex marriage, trans persons, non-white persons, mixed race marriage, abortion — that’s taught and nurtured.
But this is why the right-wing resists liberal education (and I don’t mean leftist when I say liberal). They want to ensure the cultivated disgust isn’t dispelled by knowledge.
Absolutely. The part that is learned can be unlearned. My conservative Republican friends in Tennessee (from the town where “Don’t Try That in a Small Town” was filmed) used to attend a rigid PCA Presbyterian Church. My co-author’s personal journey included reading Cornel West and Isabel Wilkerson, and along the way he came to resist the political valence of the sermons he was hearing–the insistence that the congregation had to vote a very specific way to please God.
They are Anglicans now. (I know…but it’s a long journey.) My friend fully accepts gay people, something he couldn’t do when we met twenty years ago. Disgust–learned disgust–can be unlearned. It takes work, and the will to change.
And you’re totally right about education. You’re not gonna keep the kids down with the hate, not when they’ve seen the li-brar-ee.
I seen videos of Trump being scared to walk down a ramp so he takes one tiny, careful step at a time while tight gripping the railing.
I’ve seen videos of Biden cautious walking, not taking full steps, going slow.
I’ve seen video of Biden talking like an older person.
I’ve seen video of Trump talking like an older person.
The difference is what this post is about. The media is not telling me Trump is old. But the media is screaming at me Biden is old.
I’m weary that the media is doing another But Her Emails with Biden (“But He’s Old”) thinking, like with HRC, Biden’s the most likely to win while influencing a loss.
With age comes having lived through things. Biden and his people lived through But Her Emails so I’ve got hope that they will throw a surprise punch when the timing is right.
Krisy Gosney,
Buttery males it is!
Datnotdat
Flailing? Waving around wildly? Ridiculous, imo.
Unclear to me how the democrats are responsible for what the right wing press chooses to convey.
My own feeling on this is we are getting drawn into a Great Leader contest, Biden vs. Trump, but Trump isn’t a great leader, so Biden will lose. The last election was Beowulf vs. the Wyrm, and Biden won. Þæt wæs god cyning is how you say that in Anglo Saxon, but this is like the reverse story. Now Biden is Hrothgar. Grendel keeps raiding the king’s mead house and slaughtering the people, and the king is old. His advisors like Kamala are impotent, so It’s an old classic we are replaying. People pine for Beowulf of the Geats to come and save them, to wrestle with Grendel. Tear off his arm. Gavin! Gretchen! Jack!
Biden can’t win a hero contest with Trump because Trump isn’t a hero. Here’s what I think. Lina M. Khan is a British-born American legal scholar. Six years ago in law school she wrote a paper law review showing how rational actor theory missed how Amazon is a true monopoly. She has been serving as chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission since 2021. How did she get that job? It’s the kind of thing that shows both how and why the Democrats and why Biden are different. We don’t need a great leader. We’re lucky to have a wise old guy and an experienced team. They should run campaign ads on the individual records of each person in the administration and then tell story of what happened with each person who had that job in the Trump white house. What I say about this is as significant as my choices for fantasy football, but like in fantasy football, it’s our team versus their team. Show the American people the last team Trump put together. Run the ads as if they were candidates, chief of staff vs. chief of staff, economic advisor vs economic advisor, attorney general vs attorney general, secretary of state vs secretary of state, and end each with what Trump’s people say about him now. Who cares what I say?
“A wise old guy and an experienced team”. Perfect! It is the combination of a guy with years and years of experience who knows how things actually work surrounded by people with new ideas about how things should work. The push and pull of these two things leads to progress when both sides listen and are allowed to do what they do best, which is what is happening in the Biden Administration.
Wetzel’s plan saves the Democrats! I also wrote a gold record song this week, and Elon told me I passed some kind of test for Mars with Twitter glitches. Sorry. Politics.
The Tech Transparency Project reported 8-31-2023 that the Anti-Trust Education Project, run by Robert Bork Jr., received funding from Amazon in 20 and 21.
Bork’s advisory board includes Joshua Wright, Exec. Dir. of George Mason University Global Anti-Trust Institute which received funding from Google, Amazon and Meta.Two other members of the board are at GMU which, even though it is a public university, is inextricably linked to Charles Koch.
“Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.” Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
“Growing old is inevitable, but aging gracefully is a choice.” Anonymous
“I’m not getting older; I’m becoming a classic.” Unknown
Experience and guile will always overcome youth and skill.
Machiavelli
I saw this meme this morning that Biden has aged like a fine wine and Trump has aged like an unexploded WWll bomb.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218742349
Provoked by Fox News’ continuous repetition of the theme that Joe Biden is feeble in mind and body, augmented by endless loops of carefully curated clips of his supposed physical and mental infirmity, I have made a point recently of observed him up close and in person.i\
He is indeed old and looks it. But he gave lengthy remarks, mostly off-the-cuff, describing various current issues he obviously knew thoroughly. He answered questions in detail and at length from members of the audience, describing at length, for example, the legal history of Roe v. Wade. (Perhaps at too-great length, but loquaciousness is another issue altogether). Physically he’s quite vigorous. In short, not a problem, though the media, left, center and right, seems to insist on making Biden’s age the central issue, which makes the public think it’s the issue, which the media then reports as – surprise – the main issue, in an endless feedback cycle. For the right-wing media it is a deliberate move, for the rest, I’m guessing, it’s more a mindless bandwagon effect. Marcy’s post can hopefully move the media to some self-reflection.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. SECOND REQUEST: Please use the SAME USERNAME, email address, and URL (if you have a personal site) each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You have 31 approved published comments under username “Jeffrey Gallup” without any data in the URL field. Please revert to that; “Jeffrey C Gallup” is not the same username, and adding “N/A” in the URL field doesn’t match your original user identity. Future comments may not clear for publication with these mismatches. /~Rayne]
“One reason Joe Biden is behind in the polls” If one first starts out with the polls are rigged (think online shopping, post emails one receives) combined with a, 879 people were polled %. What is the goal beyond Pavlov’ed?
My thinking at 73, Biden always starts with his known persona, “a fighter.” What’s so amazing in the perception of whats real is a 43 minute video of the of the Hamas massacre has been shown to leaders. Simplified time, if you coddle rapists, you are a rapist (think Me Too.) Thank God we have a fighter as a president in these absurd times. I’d like to write, “if one coddles” but “if you” is the correct enunciation. I’ve never been angrier in my life at “progressives” screaming at me, NATO and at tunnel dwelling terrorists! I’m a God Damned FDR Liberal, get used to it!
On to Biden’s age. Let the oligarch owned media Pavlov until the pavlov’ed turns into the puddle of muddle it actually is, instead of a not seen (super) wash. WE are AT war. It’s kind of what’s not interesting, the personified oligarch’s news sites. Elmo MUST get his pic in the news today. Oligarchy ends in stagnation. What will they do to postpone the stagnation?
P.S. The photo of Biden on a bicycle in Raynes post is very cool but the ‘helmut’ that the maggaists will focus on… as the world turns.
“WE are AT war.”
You’re a Ukrainian FDR liberal?
I am a life long Democrat. President Biden, in an upset, has been the most successful President that I have ever voted for (I started voting in 1980).
I heard a discussion recently about Biden possibly ending up in a wheel chair and wouldn’t that be disqualifying. Moments later Trump announced he was considering Gov. Abbott for VP.
Aaarrrghhhh!
I also think we are seriously hampered by the so called Goldwater rule. We should have poll questions like, ” do you believe Mr. Trumps’ malignant narcissism and Sociopathy negatively impact his ability to do the job”?
People don’t know about FDR and his disability, because it’s been ignored for so long. (He used a wheelchair. And crutches. And, I think, leg braces. Polio.)
This article
https://www.salon.com/2024/03/01/like-someone-pulled-the-metaphorical-plug-dr-john-gartner-on-accelerating-dementia/
speaks to Trump’s rapidly growing dementia. His face sometimes blanks, he goes slack-jawed, stops mid-word, and uses nonsense syllables. Professionals, and people whose loved one has descended into dementia, know these symptoms well. Some professionals are afraid to speak out because they are employed in the public sector in red states.
These episodes are not shown on CNN, MSNBC, Fox (of course), but there is a compendium that requires closed captioning to understand only a bit of it.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1764295156981723453
No matter what blather comes from him, his MAGATs will treat him as The Messiah. I hope all the others will see stunning examples of Trump’s grave illness as soon as possible.
He speaks in tongues. It is not given to us to understand. /s
The best response for Biden would be to say, “I may have 81 years behind me, but my opponent has 91 indictments in front of him.”
Anti-Biden “Democrats” like David Axelrod of the free market University of Chicago don’t think Biden is doing enough to help the 0.1% richest.
Thank you for that slap back at Axelrod. The best I could come up with was “No one asked you for your opinion, Axe.” The problem with that? It seemed like the New York Times had, indeed, asked him. What a joke.
Personally, given that the choice is between Trump and Biden, I don’t care about Biden’s age. Given that Trump is the other alternative, I would rather elect a 300 celery stalk that was forgotten at the bottom of the vegetable drawer in the fridge and not Trump. Even with a celery stalk as a president, with the right advisors and administrative staff behind him, everything will be Ok. Maybe we won’t be able to fix the things that need to be fixed, but at least it won’t break and destroy everything around him.
Which is why Biden’s age is a concern. Not because he could or couldn’t function as a president at the next term, but because he might loose to Trump because he looks so old.
Biden looks old. He looks and acts like an old statesman. Trump looks old af. Like freaky, ‘I think nobody can tell I’m old’ old. But he acts like a spaz most of the time. Rolling Stone has an article out about Trump’s doctor, Ronnie James, and ex White House doctor. They say the Trump White House was awash with speed when Dr James was top doc. High quality, prescription speed. I’ll vote for an old statesman over an old speed user any day. And I think most people would too.
Ronny Jackson, not James.