We have such short political memories these days. Biden was elected in 2020 as a one-term caretaker Not Trump to restore some sense of normalcy. Attempting another run was the first domino.
Dude’s 82. You don’t even let someone run a McDonald’s at that age, so mental and physical decline were not only inevitable but apparent well ahead of the debate. Instead of announcing he’ll step down after the midterms and allow Dems to have a robust primary process that would produce what voters wanted this time (Not Biden), he decided to meander into this shitshow.
My parents are roughly the ages of Biden and Trump, and they categorically deny that life can have possibly gotten more difficult in just a single generation (easy to say when housing used to be plentiful and affordable, with layoffs a nonissue). People on Social Security should not be making economic decisions for the country at large. The gerontocracy just continues to get more out of step with each passing year.
from an Ezra Klein op-ed published in Feb 2024, arguing that it’s not too late for Biden to step aside, this paragraph has been wedged in my brain ever since:
I have this nightmare that Trump wins in 2024. And then in 2025 and 2026, out come the campaign tell-all books, and they’re full of emails and WhatsApp messages between Biden staffers and Democratic leaders, where they’re all saying to each other, this is a disaster, he’s not going to win this, I can’t bear to watch this speech, we’re going to lose. But they didn’t say any of it publicly, they didn’t do anything, because it was too dangerous for their careers, or too uncomfortable given their loyalty to Biden.
those floodgates are about to open, of people in the White House spilling the beans about just how mentally diminished Biden has been.
I’m old enough to remember when Democrats talked about Reagan having Alzheimer’s during his 2nd term, and criticized Republicans for forming a reality distortion field and insisting that no, everything was fine actually, Reagan was in perfect health.
They hand-delivered memos to Mr. Biden describing social media posts the campaign staff had persuaded allies to write that pushed back on negative articles and polls.
consent factory go brrrrr
