Jonathan M. Katz: Biden clearly has declined mentally compared to even four years ago. This shouldn’t be up for debate. And yes, it is likely a product of his extremely advanced age. It makes sense that his team wanted him to do the debate. They told themselves he’d overcome his limitations in the moment. He didn’t.

Biden clearly has declined mentally compared to even four years ago. This shouldn’t be up for debate. And yes, it is likely a product of his extremely advanced age. It makes sense that his team wanted him to do the debate. They told themselves he’d overcome his limitations in the moment. He didn’t.

"wow insane they wanted to do a debate when biden has severe mental decline, just doesn't make sense!" yeah we know. turns out "biden has no mental decline besides being old and just had a bad debate" literally explains all of these weird questions you have! whodathunk!?

Historians of the future, assuming there are any, will hopefully have access to memos and internal conversations explaining how this happened. Lack of an audience. Cold medicine perhaps. But by far the biggest factor was that he is old as fuck, and is declining mentally.

If say George W. Bush had come out at his first debate in 2004 slurring his words, losing his train of thought, muttering things like “we finally beat Medicare,” it would have been a national emergency. No one — especially a Democrat — would shrug it off and say “ah he had a bad night.”

It’s both. Everyone the same age, whatever the age, doesn’t have the same developmental challenges and/or advantages. But certain things also become more and less likely at different ages, and their appearance at different ages is meaningful! bsky.app/profile/davi...

of course he's old. but i know people in their 90s still doing exceptional, high-level thinking and organizing and work. i'm not that into the blanket old-as-whatever thing. this is about this particular 81 y.o.

Maybe it’s because I’m in a sandwich generation with very young kids, older parents, and experience with my own periods of disability, but I don’t have a problem understanding how these things intersect.

I think he had a TIA, a mild stroke. I had one at 36. It’s disorienting and debilitating for a couple minutes. Then it’s gone, but a searing headache can linger for a while.

ok, but the comparison group in that example would be republicans, who absolutely would have shrugged it off and said bush won and there'd have been seven attack ads questioning kerry's mental fitness before the weekend doesn't make it right, but...

It would have been pretty typical for W, tbh. I had a whole desk calendar of lines like that.

“Families are where wings take dream” still floors me at inopportune moments.

I mean, look at this sundown syndrome description, and say which part does not match with Biden's symptoms

Uh, most of them.

Ok, Chris Elliott. How's your career been? Up Schitt's Creek?

of course he's old. but i know people in their 90s still doing exceptional, high-level thinking and organizing and work. i'm not that into the blanket old-as-whatever thing. this is about this particular 81 y.o.

if i may give you one example, this young punk will still argue circles around most of us

This 94-year-old Holocaust survivor recommended arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leadersforward.com 94-year-old Holocaust survivor Theodor Meron was part of a panel on war crimes convened by the International Criminal Court.

That’s neat now let’s go gather up a bunch of random 94-year-olds and see how they do. I can point to a person that survived falling out of a plane without a parachute. It doesn’t mean we should recommend that as a course of action.

Okay but the 81-year-old in question has slammed arrest warrants like that

Yes

Sure, but I would bet that even many of those 90-year-olds would struggle to communicate vigor in a campaign or debate. I genuinely don’t think Biden is struggling in, like, meetings or briefings. He’s not Dianne Feinstein who needed her binder pages turned for her. But he still can’t campaign well.

yes and frankly even ppl much younger struggle in the face of campaigns. no doubt. i just think there’s variety and it’s not useful or even cool to keep saying it’s because he’s old that he performed badly.

But the presidency aging people has been a meme since I've been alive. It's an exhausting job. I doubt your 90 year old acquaintances would have been doing so well if they spent 4 years in their late 70s being physically and mentally taxed at a level few people have ever experienced

Uh, Joe Biden has been in and around the presidency for like 30+ years. Some people get energized by this kind of stuff and those are the ones who make it. If it exhausted him he would have retired a long time ago.

Being around the presidency is not the presidency. The fact that it exhausts people is universal and openly acknowledged. Just because you know 90 year olds who still play a mean game of Rummikub doesn't mean all 81 year olds are therefore cogent.

He did 8 years as VP. Came back for 4 years as POTUS and is asking for 4 more. You can think he's in mental decline without arguing that he *feels bad.* He clearly feels fine and believes he is fine and his physical stamina still looks good.

They’re still at the twilight of life. How can you expect urgency from those who will not be here in a decade?

I guess you should probably stay home in November then.

I believe that when future historians looks back at the smouldering ash heap that was once America, in last 12 days before Independence Day upon which they will most closely focus. prada.substack.com/p/you-get-sc...

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The idea that his mental decline isn't relevant because it's due to old age is very weird to me.

Your ability to diagnose mental decline greatly outstrips your expertise in making that diagnosis. Real experts in cognitive ability and aging know better. www.publicnotice.co/p/biden-deba...

The author asserts that what we know about Biden hasn't changed since the debate which, come on, even Nancy Pelosi isn't making that argument. The author then quotes some experts from May speaking in generalities about aging. Not persuasive imo.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Experts who know that difficulties in communication are NOT signs of cognitive decline. This is not "generalities about aging," but specific to the claims about how laypeople misinterpret such difficulties, especially with stutterers, which Biden is. Pelosi is no expert.

It's not his stutter that has changed over the last 4 years.

Yes it is. As the linked article makes clear aging can make a stutter more difficult to handle. I cannot believe people make these crazy diagnoses with no expertise on the issue on the basis of a shitty debate performance as if the last four years of governing just didn't happen. "

Aging makes a lot of things around mental and physical processing more difficult, yes. That's not actually a point in his favor.

He did quite well at the state of the union only a few months ago so I don’t think it was unrealistic to think he could have done much better than he actually did.

That’s what I expected would happen.

That's what everyone expected. Trump's camp was making up stories about Biden taking performance enhancing drugs because they thought he was going to do so well. This was clearly a fluke.

Unfortunately not clearly a fluke, or he'd have been holding a press conference immediately not a non-live interview 8 days later. No one that sees him day to day was trying to hype up the performance before the debate. They tried to downplay it, but not enough.

A press conference with reporters shouting "ARE YOU TOO OLD?!" wouldn't be the best format to ease concerns. He's had speaking events every day since the debate & he's been lively & energetic, but those haven't really been talked about. Ppl that saw him day to day were surprised by the debate, too 🤷‍♀️

Right because he's able to read from a teleprompter, but the Presidency is more than that. That he's the President right now while his condition is unclear is what is worrying people (me at least).

Yet literally the following morning he had a rally in NC and was doing quite well (with a minor cough). Idk maybe it says something about him having been ran down the night before maybe too much prep and presidential stuff and not enough rest.

Eh, do you really have the training to say this? Biden’s “lapses” are/were mixing up words and losing a train of thought (before returning) when trying to cram 3 or 4 points in a 60 second answer. Hes not talking for minutes at a time *completely* confused and talking in circles like Trump.

Is it fair to wonder? Sure. It’s obviously an important question- i think it’s slightly glib to make this sort of definitive claim through the television when he’s operating (successfully) for literally years and speaks publicly (generally without any issue) 2-4 times a week

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