If the issue was a single bad debate we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
To get back to the OP.
The powers of the POTUS are limited. Limited.
I am not sure why people are freaking out. I can’t stand Trump, and would never vote for him, but our republic would still be intact even if he we were reelected.
It reminds me of the Sky is Falling folk tale.
Not according to the Supreme Court, which just gave the president carte blanche to murder anyone who tries to limit his power.
Again inviting opinions in my Factual Questions thread to hash this point out, because it’s really hard to have this conversation otherwise, IMO.
Every example of cognitive decline for Biden that has been offered in the media has either been a distortion of what happened or an outright lie. Stuttering, confusing names, etc. is not evidence of cognitive decline.
Please offer an example if you disagree.
I cannot diagnose Joe Biden over the internet, so I’m not going to do that. I will agree that stuttering, particularly for someone who has had a stutter for decades, is no evidence of cognitive issues, and it’s frankly able-ist to think so. So I think it’s safe to rule out stuttering, gaffes, and any other issue that has been documented for literally decades.
The concern is over things that are NEW. From appearances, Biden appears to be exhibiting occasions of momentary confusion and slower recall in contexts where it is important that he not exhibit them: primarily the debate, of course, but now that people are alert for these signs, they’re seeing them in other contexts.
It is possible that post-debate evidence is confirmation bias fuelled by right-wing and foreign propaganda.
It is also possible that 80-year-old man in high stress situation is showing signs of mild cognitive decline.
If this is the case, it is possible that this is really no big deal as far as his job performance goes: he can still be president just fine. However, I don’t think that will wash on the campaign trail.
It is also possible that we are not seeing the gritty reality of a president in steep decline. I find that highly unlikely, though.
In post 556 of this thread I mention I have concerns about him experiencing some physical decline because that is something I can see compared to how he moved 6 months to a year ago. However, I do not see any evidence of cognitive decline. Memory issues or struggling to come up with a name is typical for older people.
Absolutely true. I once called my friend by the wrong name.
Panic or don’t panic, it doesn’t matter. Biden will be the candidate. All of these possible machinations and scenarios are just idle chatter. It’s too late, even for Harris, unless there is a catastrophic event. But don’t lose hope…maybe Trump will stroke out.
He did say he’s going to be a dictator on the first day.
And the President is legally the sole decider regarding nuclear war (something that can and should be changed by law — use of nuclear weapons should require vote of some sort of security cabinet). At present, though, this most crucial power is not limited.
While he cannot abrogate treaties, he can gut NATO by ordering troops home. And Putin plausibly would see that as a golden opportunity to restore the USSR.
I am not afraid Trump will abolish elections. But authoritarians usually become more dangerous the longer they are in power. So a degree of panic is reasonable should he be again elected.
If I lose fluid intelligence, it will be a catastrophic event to me and my family. If Biden has lost it, as seems more than possible, it’s in the ballpark of a catastrophic event for the national family. It saddens me to read about it.
What doesn’t panic me is the prospect of a convention with two or three ballots. I don’t buy that weakening the nominee.
You should be.
That was four years ago. He hasn’t become less autocratic since then.
I can even write his 3 AM tweet from January 2029 right now. “After consulting with my judges, I cannot allow the worst ever (rigged!) election results to go unchallenged. Therefore I hear by use my official power to adjourn Congress indefinitely until we find the votes to elect your favorite president, me, to the third term the American people have demanded. MAGA!”
As stated previously, who are you trying to convince?
Respectfully, seeing Biden at a dozens rallies and scripted press conferences won’t address the concerns people have over his mental competence. They acknowledge he does well at those, but point out reading a teleprompter is a different skill set than putting together a coherent reply on the fly.
For Biden to affect the skeptics, he needs to stop with his mantra of “watch me”, and he needs to be seen interacting in improvisational conversation and remaining coherent. He needs to address the questions directly. He needs to stop saying “Look at the things I’ve been able to do,” because his past record is not necessarily an indicator of continued ability.
Frankly, I don’t know how to answer the questions of “Can you continue for more years?” and “Are you being realistic and objective in your self-assessment?”
Because he can say yes, but then how does he prove that?
To be fair, the George Stephanopolous interview was unedited.
This is what boggles my mind. Conservatives claim to be worried about vote integrity, about big government intrusion in their lives like “the liberals are coming for my guns”, about the economy, and about government integrity “drain the swamp”.
But they back the biggest narcissist who cares nothing about them but is good at saying the messages they like. They back a candidate who openly tried to defy the election results despite all signs even from his own party vote officials that the vote was legitimate. They pick the candidate who didn’t drain the swamp, he opened the floodgates to fill it. A candidate who as President threatened to send federal troops against protesters, and then unleashed a mob on Capitol Police. They back policy to truncate women’s rights - the right to self determination about their own body and health.
I get that the MAGA core is all in in Trump. But too many otherwise sensible conservatives turn a blind eye to his designs on destroying the Constitution and the liberty they laud because of vague fears about “socialism”.
And liberals fry my mind because they are mad at Biden over the Israel-Hamas war and threaten to protest vote without thinking for one second how Trump would be handling it. So you think he would be pushing Israel harder to stop the indescriminate killing? No, he’d be applauding Netanyahu for strength. He’ll, he’d probably cheer Netanyahu on to wipe them all out - “it’s the only way to eliminate the threat”.
I tell you, we are living in those interesting times of apocryphal Chinese curse.
That’s like complaining about there being too many stories about football on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s the story right now and people want to talk about it. The news reports the news. It will die down but unless Biden can do something to squash it nothing is going away.
This story shows me the contrast between real life and the SDMB. I just saw a friend of mine posting about Biden “doing the right thing” and stepping aside. That friend is one of the most intelligent, accomplished and liberal people I know. I have yet to talk to anyone in real life that thinks Biden is a good candidate at this point, even those that will still vote for him. It’s not scientific of course but I would feel better if I could find just one person who feels good about Biden.
I doubt the NYT negative stories about Biden’s age will die down. They’ve been pounding on that angle for months. Now that others are joining in I doubt they will lay off.
So thinking about it, I will name some ongoing issues Biden is currently juggling.
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There is the Israel/Hamas war, and the concern over the incredibly huge number of civilian deaths and policies of how to carry out the war. This includes trying to get a cease fire, and negotiate for hostage return, including US citizens.
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There is the further complication of other Iranian backed groups such as Hezbollah, or even Iran directly, directly engaging Israel. This is where Biden is caught because any actions taken to sanction Israel could be motivation for larger attacks on Israel. He cannot pull support from Israel because it would have repurcussions in the whole region, inviting the escalation of the war.
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Simultaneously, there is the Houfi (sp?) situation in the Red Sea. International shipping has been severely impacted, and US companies are a big part of that.
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Iraq is still not stable, and Iran is playing a role there as well. The US killing an Iranian general was provocative, even though he was in Iraq and supporting terrorists.
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There is a huge war in Ukraine defending it from Russian invasion. The US is a major player in the coalition to keep Ukraine alive.
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This ties in with sanctions against Russia, and other diplomatic tools to punish Putin.
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China is being aggressive in the Pacific and especially the China Sea. China is especially saber taking rattling over Taiwan.
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North Korea is now dealing with Russia. So is Iran. The Axis of Evil has become a real thing.
Domestically,
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Congress is disfunctional largely because of MAGA Republicans. The repurcussions to the foreign issues is significant.
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The economy has been bad. Rampant inflation has driven prices up. While inflation has now slowed, prices remain high. Citizens feel the effects of high prices over just about all other indicators of economic health. Economic recovery is a hard sell when people have to pay more for everything.
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Roe v. Wade was overturned. The fallout is massive restrictions on abortion in many states. There are further repurcussions as other fertility related topics come under scrutiny for the reach of state governments without a federal statute or court judgements.
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Immigration - especially in the face of MAGA obstruction. The southern border is weak, and the northern border is ignored, although the access for highly motivated populations is south, so that’s where the crisis is.
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Global Climate Change and the implications domestically and abroad. Policy on this topic is a nightmare with obstruction highly funded. Steps to curb global warming cost money, and impacts to business are significant. A lot of people want to wish it away, or dismiss it. But it’s not going away, and we are feeling the effects. Such as the current hurricane in the Gulf.
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Trump. The legal implications of every step in every court case.
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The Supreme Court with a strong “conservative” majority engaged in activist behavior to overturn precedent and destroy common understanding of words to interpret legal precedents in extreme ways.
I’m probably missing some things. And then there are the cross-ties between the issues, for example, actions in Ukraine affecting China’s assessment of US commitment to Taiwan.
This is the life of a President. If not these specific issues, then other issues of similar complication.
But Biden is tap-dancing with all of these issues, and also trying to campaign for reelection. Yet he seems to be a pretty good tap dancer. He’s been more effective than Obama with an even more difficult Congress to work with.
His skills as an orator are mediocre. He’s not Obama, or Bill Clinton. But his ongoing actions are awesome.
We could scrutinize his actions on every one of these topics and decide where he’s great and where he stinks, but in the whole he isn’t missing many steps, and those mostly because his dance partners keep breaking the rhythm.
So I’m not advocating “Look at what he’s accomplished,” I’m saying look at what he is doing.
If there were real mental decline, it seems there would be more disaster.
Yes, I know a good government can run without constant direct input from the Pres. We saw more turmoil under Trump because he wouldn’t let the professionals do their jobs. He wanted to micromanage everything without regard to policy, precedent, or the law. He generated chaos rather than calmed it.
But Biden is steering the ship much more smoothly through rougher waters.
I think this shows he is still competent.
I know the debate was a disaster, a visual demonstration of what his critics proclaim. It fits their narrative that Biden has dementia, or mental decline, or whatever.
But we need to be careful about accepting the easy narrative. Confirmation bias will drive us to hyper-scrutinize Biden’s every action.
What Biden needs is a focus on the ongoing issues and how he’s currently addressing them. His past successes then become demonstrations of what he is doing now, not things he’s done that don’t show his future.
He has a history of doing well in Town Halls and glad-handing. Ramp those up. Let America hear him address people directly rather than fumble with a time limit with someone shouting in his ear. (Yeah, the mics were off, Trump was still talking on stage.)
If we are going to revitalize his campaign, it’s going to take a concerted and unified Democrat voice that Biden is not just better than Trump, but that he’s still doing a great job.
Agreed, @Loach, that Biden’s decline is a legitimate news story. But breathless front-page headlines and a flood of op-ed pieces for the past ten days? I happen to think the July 1 Supreme Court decision is a far bigger story and that the media failed to treat it as such.
It’s not that simple. How many pixels were wasted on Hillary’s emails? Obama’s birth certificate?
How do we distinguish between “what people want to talk about” and what the media is giving them to talk about?
This sounds a lot like the argument used against Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries when he was going up against Hillary.
If anything, the argument is not youth vs. substance, it’s substance vs. an older candidate whose age has become a massive liability. It’s not like we’re talking an inexperienced 40-year old vs. a 55-year old; we’re talking an experienced 55-year old vs. an 80-year old.
The Republicans couldn’t sing the “Inexperienced Celebrity” song loud enough or often enough in 2008, two cycles before they became the Cult of the Inexperienced Celebrity.
A commenter to Hopium Chronicles puts an interesting spin on it: Is, indeed, all publicity good publicity?
Someone at Daily Kos wrote a diary titled “DARK BRANDON RISING: Biden finally getting some airtime! Trump struggles to regain the spotlight!”. The writer pointed out that it is (in his words) “BIDEN BIDEN BIDEN24/7.” He commented that it is very sad for Trump because he can’t get any airtime; he just can’t get back in the spotlight with the entire corporate media laser focused on Biden hoping to catch him in a flub.
…
Getting scrutinized about Biden’s cognitive abilities is not an ideal way for him or the Democrats to receive attention, But, I heard it said turnabout is fair play.