what’s really going to be wild is if we ditch a sitting president for the second time in history based on a fullbore media and social media freakout and then everyone goes back to claiming media narratives don’t matter in politics
Here's what I think: I think that if he's still perfectly sharp and everyone around him knows it, he'll be fine.
If there's an actual cognitive decline issue, which I do not for a moment pretend to know if there actually is, he's doneso.
I'm not so sanguine that "true, objective reality" will win out. The AG Failson has his frame and he's been busy shoving every little scrap of evidence at hand into it.
The big "Biden Lapses" article has text that mostly contradicts its headline. Doesn't matter to the freakout.
It's not abt true objective reality, it's just that I think he will be able to successfully resist pressure to step down if everyone around him knows this us bullshit, but not if they know it's not.
I think the news is crafting its own reality now though. Everyone around him is hyper-sensitive to little lapses because they know how they'll be seized.
I think a lot of the debate was that he knew how important it was to nail that and the pressure ended up giving him the twisties.
I keep thinking about how millions of Californians were represented by Dianne Feinstein even as her memory deteriorated. It only ended when she died. Awful.
It should, but as someone who was watching Feinstein in business meetings during that, the comparison with Biden right now isn’t even close. Feinstein needed people to turn the page of her binder for her.
Genuinely confused how anyone is still prefacing his status with conditionals after what we saw last week.
Look I’m as despondent about all this as anyone, but how is there still debate about Biden’s cognitive decline? What is there to debate or confirm?
He's never been amazing in debates, and his answers were more coherent in the transcript than they seemed live. I'd buy the story of an off night, I'm not close enough to know for sure.
Look, I hate it. I deeply, profoundly hate it given the circumstances, but we saw what we saw. That wasn’t “an off night.” The sooner everyone stops telling themselves this will go back in the box the sooner we can figure out what has to be done.
Mainstream media is clearly out for blood with Biden on the age issue and more than a few journalists are staking their reputation/personal pride on what they've said. Biden being fine in actuality isn't sufficient to stop repeated cycles of freakouts over his behavior that are misread or overread.
I think there is substantial downside risk to Biden dropping, but now there's also substantial downside risk to him not. The situation is not looking all that great all around, especially given that there is a would-be vengeful autocrat who stands to benefit from this.
