Did you become convinced that Biden has dementia based on that one moment in the debate where he lost his train of thought and couldn’t complete his sentence coherently? If you did, maybe you were too quick to jump to a conclusion. Yes, he definitely had a very unfortunate senior moment at a very inopportune time. But you can’t diagnose clinical dementia based on a single video clip of a brief moment of confusion, no matter how bad it looks.
Consider the image above, from the recent 2-hour long transition meeting between Biden and Trump at the White House. You probably saw a clip of the handshake and congenial manner between the two as the meeting was concluded. Yes, Biden probably had some notes or a list to make sure he covered all the important preplanned points. But I assume there were no teleprompters in the room. And judging by the pleased look on Trump’s face, I almost expected him to declare that he believed Biden likes him, as he did after his transition meeting with Obama back in 2016!
Am I suggesting that Biden should have remained in the race, or that the election might have had a different outcome? No, I am not. The incumbant president was not polling well long before he withdrew from the race. And he is, unarguably, already near or past the average life expectancy for an American man, depending on the criteria used. His senior moments and general age-related physical and mental decline will undoubtedly continue to progress. We have no way of predicting whether he would live out another 4 year term of office. Just as we have no way of knowing whether Trump will.
Perhaps I’m most surprised at how many, including Dems, have concluded that Biden evidences more mental decline than Trump. Have folks forgetten the clips of Trump with drunk-level slurred speech, and particularly the one where his sentence trails off into a mush of non-word sounds? (I couldn’t find that one, but if you can please post it for me.) I would argue that the obvious signs of mental decline in both men are very similar.
And let’s don’t forget Mitch McConnell. McConnell, now 82, had a fall in march of ‘23 resulting in a concussion. In the months following, there were two incidents when he was speaking at a microphone on camera, and he abruptly “froze”, unable to speak for maybe 30 seconds, and had to be led off by his staff. As with Biden and Trump, there was no transparency about these mental lapses, basically just denial. At the time, I felt McConnell should step down as minority Senate leader and retire. But there was no push in the Senate for him to do that, and so he remains. I personally now believe that his mental lapses were petit mal seizures (effects of his concussion), but we are left to speculate due to his decided lack of transparency.
In another story, I explored the reasons Biden resisted pressure to step aside for so long. I believe, in his case, it was more than just ego and clinging to power. In any case, maybe there should be an upper age limit on running for president, as others have suggested. What do you think?
