Is the problem Biden’s brain or his corruption?
Embrace the power of “both.”
All sorts of news today on Biden. First, we have his refusal to take a cognitive test at his physical:
The White House says President Biden will not take a cognitive test — even after a damning report from his own Department of Justice highlighting his “poor memory” and voters expressing major concerns about his mental acuity.
“The president proves every day [in] how he operates and how he thinks — by dealing with world leaders, by making difficult decisions on behalf of the American people — whether it’s domestic or national security,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday, quoting from Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor.
Well, yes, we all see that. We also see him speak about talking with dead leaders, getting fog-brained on a regular basis, and getting disoriented spatially as well.
I actually agree with those who say that Biden isn’t senile; I have long said he’s cognitively challenged. It’s just a question of how bad it has gotten, and he actually can be coherent on many occasions, at least for a while. But not only do we not want a cognitively challenged president, we don’t want one whose judgment is as terrible as Biden’s. However, with Biden, it’s difficult to tell whether his poor judgment is a result of his cognitive challenges or whether it’s merely a demonstration of his lifelong dimness. There’s also his lifelong penchant for lying and his long-term corruption to consider.
It’s quite the combination.
I’ve long said that I think the Democrats will nominate him in 2024 anyway, for want of a better candidate and in particular due to the difficulty of removing him. The needle has shifted somewhat in the direction of removal, I think. But it’s still not quite there; perhaps they themselves aren’t sure what they will do and how they will do it. My guess is that there are several camps fighting over this, probably quite bitterly.
But however competent or incompetent Joe Biden seems to the American public, you can be sure the Democrats are busy “fortifying” the election. And at the moment, most of the Democrat spokespeople certainly seem to be saying “pay no attention to that weird old guy in front of the curtain, the real Joe is sharp as a tack.” Perhaps that indicates they will stand behind him in November, or perhaps they’re just buying time and gaslighting us until they find a good substitute and a face-saving method of removal.
But on the corruption side, there’s plenty of news as well: we have this from Hunter’s business associate Bobulinski:
Tony Bobulinski delivers explosive testimony in House impeachment probe: ‘Joe Biden was ‘the Brand’ being sold’ https://t.co/F36LKf5IgI pic.twitter.com/hPJy5dcqQ9
— New York Post (@nypost) February 13, 2024
However, most Democrats I know – probably all Democrats I know – will vote for Biden if he is the nominee, especially if he runs against Trump. That’s because Trump is Hitler, or something like that.
[ADDENDUM: More on Bobulinski’s testimony can be found here.]
Like you say it’s both.
The Dems don’t and won’t have a good substitute, but whether it’s Kamala or anybody else, they’ll be running against Trump the evil secret Hitler. And for most Dem voters, including Jews, the Dem Derangement against Trump will be enough to get them to vote for the Dem.
Too few Republicans are complaining about election fraud, voter IDs, and especially maintaining the physical envelopes of all absentee/mail-in ballots. Which themselves should be delivered to their respective address based precincts for voter eligibility & to reduce duplicate voting. But probably won’t be.
Speaking of “fortifying” the election, I expect that we’ll hear again this year how voting should be made compulsory. I might be in favor of election day being made a federal holiday if the tradeoff is in-person voting with no mail-in ballots, but the Republicans are too stupid and/or addicted to losing that they won’t insist on that as a tradeoff. If the Democrats achieve their dream of compulsory voting, watch out because they’ll go after the secret ballot next. Count on it.
It really comes down to rule of law. The Democrat Party is anti rule of law.
They would probably vote for Biden if he were a straw stuffed corpse.
They would probably vote for Biden if he proposed to neutron bomb middle America to clear the way for greater diversity after the short lived radiation had dissipated.
They would vote for Biden no matter what; not because they hate Trump alone, but because they hate Trump’s supporters so much they would destroy the country in preference to seeing him succeed in making America great again according to a vision that did not accord with their sensibilities.
How they would expect to survive that, I do not know. And probably neither do they.
But that is where we are headed.
However, most Democrats I know – probably all Democrats I know – will vote for Biden if he is the nominee, especially if he runs against Trump. That’s because Trump is Hitler, or something like that.
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No doubt. But then, DeSantis would be Hitler if we nominated him. Or Vivek. Or even St Nikki. It goes with the job. I’m too young to remember if Ike was Hitler, but everyone we’ve nominated since has been.
The problem with Biden isn’t his age. He is supporting and advancing precisely the same policies that he would if he were twenty years younger, which is not to say twenty years ago, the Democratic Party has changed. That sad, under certain circumstances, he is becoming more dangerous.
Joe Biden proved during the Justice Thomas hearings to be a mean and vindictive man. He has always tried to present a facade of affability. He now being an old, cognitively challenged man hasn’t changed his inherent nature in the least. That he absolutely should be charged with his treasonous crimes doesn’t change the likelihood that he never will be, at least while he still lives.
But those within administration are guilty of treason as well and at some point, reality will call them to account.
Senility refers poor mental abilities related to age. That definition applies to Biden. I suspect you are using it to mean complete mental incapacity. The word “senility” isn’t in use by experts nowadays because it’s too imprecise. It’s not a medical term describing a specific state, though people use it that way.
I objected in 2020 to somebody saying Biden was in the late stage of dementia. The late stage is quite terrifying, and Joe Biden wasn’t at that point four years ago, but it seems to me that he’s somewhere on the way there. We don’t know for sure because Biden refuses to take cognitive tests.
We can clearly see that Biden’s way of speaking and moving has changed in recent years, but it’s hard to authoritatively attribute his administration’s bad choices to the age-related waning of Joe’s mental faculties given that he was never that sharp mentally. Indeed, many of Joe’s failures aren’t the unintended results of incompetence, but exactly what his team intends.
I believe he has dementia. Which is memory loss not a cognitive issue. Where you lose your short term memory and progressively forget your history back to your birth. If someone were to ask him to name his grandchildren he probably can’t do it. But ask him about his foreign policy which is about 50 years old and he can sound reasonable. Hell, ask him what season it is. If he’s far gone enough he’ll look out the window. Sunny and it’s summer.Cloudy and it’s winter.
I would think the main benefit of cognitive testing would be to track it over time. Where one is in the continuum from sharp as a tack to vegetable is probably not so precise, but the change from year to year is going to be more meaningful, and also an indicator of where he’s likely to be 1, 2, 3 years from now. Which is kind of important. Has he had previous tests?
Why don’t you start pushing Kennedy on some of your Democrat friends? If only to pull votes away from Biden.
Shadow:
“Pushing” would only cause a backlash. Plus, there is nothing about Kennedy that they would like, particularly his vaccine opinions.
JackWayne; Abraxas:
It is a cognitive impairment, not dementia at present. It could indeed become dementia. These are technical terms. In my opinion, this describes Biden at present:
well they would like his extreme environmentalism which hopefully he has moderated of course that is the problem,
what is it they want, they want more scarcity, more wars, more social turmoil then vote Democrat
frankly I had a very dim view of rfk jr until the lockdowns and his expose of fauci who probably would have warranted an extra descriptor for Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
what is beyond malign neglect,
White House Doc Says Biden Doesn’t Need Cognitive Test Because He Shows Off His “Cognitive Ability Every Day”
Agreed, although Robert Hur seemingly begs to differ. As they say in the Ivy League, it “depends on the context”.
well yes, thats sort of the self evident problem at this point,
Joseph Robinette Biden, on his best day, at age 35 was mentally inadequate for the job of President of the United States.
Joseph Robinette Biden, with his current, diminished mental capacity is inadequate for the job of President of the local Elks lodge.
I keep being reminded of Woody Allen’s movie Sleeper, where all the govt had left of their “Leader” was his nose, but they kept him nominally in charge until Allen and Keaton flattened the nose with a steamroller. Likewise, the Dems can continue to prop up Brandon and hide him until there’s literally nothing left of him. And a great deal of the public will be none the wiser.
Sgt. Joe Friday,
A lot of people complain about low voter turnout.
I’m fine with it.
If one doesn’t feel informed enough to vote, or care enough to become informed enough to vote, or is simply too lazy or disinterested to get to a polling place and vote; then not voting is probably the best decision they can make.
Eeyore,
I think Nixon was the first Hitler the Dems identified. And, having dispatched with him they keep trying again with each, subsequent Republican President.
Geoffrey Britain,
The first time I voted for a Republican was after watching the Justice Thomas hearings. Biden behaved atrociously.
PRESIDENT [TRUMAN] LIKENS DEWEY TO HITLER AS FASCISTS’ TOOL;
Says When Bigots, Profiteers Get Control of Country They Select ‘Front Man’ to Rule DICTATORSHIP STRESSED Truman Tells Chicago Audience a Republican Victory Will Threaten U.S. Liberty TRUMAN SAYS GOP PERILS U.S. LIBERTY
https://www.nytimes.com/1948/10/26/archives/president-likens-dewey-to-hitler-as-fascists-tool-says-when-bigots.html
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It’s an Oldie but a Goodie.
no Hoover was probably the first demonized, partially because of bad luck, but bad policy, the dirigiste actions that turned a mild downturn into the Great Depression, but they ran against him for 12 years when FDR didn’t materially improve the lives of Americans to the degree he should have,
Dewey was as milquetoast as Romney, well he was a strong prosecutor, having gone after some big time mobsters, but the notion that he was some fascist front man, snorfle maybe he was an improvement over wilkie and landon,
well they didn’t go anywhere either,
after 20 years and the Korean debacle Eisenhower was elected, an able fellow but not a man of ideological conviction, except possibly he was averse in engaging in all out war, the Dulles Bros, otoh, suggested that this was an option but when the crunch came in Hungary, well they dropped the ball for reasons, his exceptance of the welfare state, that was a snippet of what we see today, is why the new right came about with Goldwater,
who thought most of this apparat was dangerous if not merely useless, but circumstance and dishonest media, made it impossible for him to win. Nixon had draWN blood with hiss, and the Dems never let him forget that
nixon had rather orthodox economic view, at a time they could no longer explain policy that was what he took away from mudge rose and garment and co, of course the dems having lopped off johnsons head, were still peckish,
he probably had the wrong temperament to be president, now he made many mistakes in the economic arena, like wage and price controls, but we were in no mans land and there was no gop house, the so called dirty tricks were sloppy and amateurish as compared to his predecessors,
he might had survived if the oil shock hadn’t punched a hole in his tires, no good deed, for saving israel from the Soviets, he had never made his fortune from politics like johnson, of course he had incurred the wrath of some of the right military like Admiral Moorer, the professional apparatchiks like Mark Felt as well as the establishment liberals that thought he had stolen what was due him, he also had this identification with Degaulle which I think odd, but compared to the current occupant and his sponsor well he was a boy scout
Every month brings more confirmation that Joe Biden lied about his role in his son’s business, but people don’t seem to notice or care. At this point, it’s “old news.” The cognitive decline is noticed, though Biden’s supporters dismiss it. I’m told that the mainstream media only show clips of Joe’s most lucid and ungarbled moments, but I don’t follow them close enough to know for sure.
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Dewey had a mustache, like some foreign dictators. Also, he was having a campaign whistle stop from the back of a train. The train started moving and Dewey joked later that the engineer should have been shot. Dewey didn’t ordinarily have much of a sense of humor and didn’t know that Republicans’ jokes would be taken literally by the media.
Dewey was crisp and efficient. He was also described as cold and pompous. He couldn’t put on the folksiness that Truman (or Biden) could. People found something endearing even in Truman’s anger and spitefulness. Dewey’s came across as cold and chilling. In the last year of his life, after Frances Dewey had died and long after Moss Hart had died, Dewey became close to television panelist Kitty Carlisle. I hope they found some comfort together.