Joe Biden, President of the United States, advanced dementia patient, enduring symbol of sclerotic late-stage liberal democracy
Post-debate open thread.
Joe Biden, sitting President of the United States, in his historic debate with former President Donald J. Trump, on abortion:
Look, there’s so many young women who have been – including a young woman who just was murdered and he – he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by a – by – by an immigrant coming in, and they talk about that. But here’s the deal, there’s a lot of young women who are being raped by their – by their in-laws, by their – by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by – just – it’s just – it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it.
Joe Biden, sitting President of the United States, in his historic debate with former President Donald J. Trump, also on abortion:
I supported Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters. First time is between a woman and a doctor. Second time is between the doctor and an extreme situation. And a third time is between the doctor – I mean, it’d be between the woman and the state.
Joe Biden, sitting President of the United States, in his historic debate with former President Donald J. Trump, on the national debt of the United States:
For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America – I mean, billionaires in America. And what’s happening? They’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they’d raised $500 million – billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period. We’d be able to right wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do – childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the – with – with – with the Covid. Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with – look, if – …. – we finally beat Medicare.
Joe Biden, sitting President of the United States, in his historic debate with former President Donald J. Trump, on the climate crisis:
We find ourselves – and by the way, black colleges, I came up with $50 billion for HBCUs, historic black universities and colleges, because they don’t have the kind of contributors that they have to build these laboratories and the like. Any black student is capable in college in doing any white student can do. They just have the money. But now, they’ll be able to get those jobs in high tech.
These were the low points, but even they can’t do justice to the scale of the trainwreck that unfolded last night. Biden has declined substantially over the past four years; at least in 2020, he could debate Trump with minimal coherence. Last night, after a full week of preparation, practice and apparently even advance access to the questions, he frequently forgot what he was talking about, offered blank baffled expressions to the camera while Trump spoke, and had substantial difficulty leaving the stage when the event was over. Afterwards, as he greeted supporters, his wife Jill Biden praised him like a child: “Joe, you did such a great job! You answered every question! You knew all the facts!” Nobody can any longer deny that the United States is in the hands of a senile figurehead suffering from serious dementia. Biden remains in office for reasons of convenience and political patronage; who is actually steering the executive branch is anybody’s guess.
“Biden is about to face a crescendo of calls to step aside,” said a veteran Democratic strategist who has staunchly backed Mr. Biden publicly. “Joe had a deep well of affection among Democrats. It has run dry.”
“Parties exist to win,” this Democrat continued. “The man on the stage with Trump cannot win. The fear of Trump stifled criticism of Biden. Now that same fear is going to fuel calls for him to step down.” …
Mark Buell, a prominent donor for Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party, said after the debate that the president had to strongly consider whether he is the best person to be the nominee. “Do we have time to put somebody else in there?” Mr. Buell said.
He added that he was not yet calling for Mr. Biden to withdraw but that “Democratic leadership has a responsibility to go to the White House and clearly show what America’s thinking, because democracy is at stake here and we’re all nervous.” …
Former Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, called it “a crisis,” saying that her phone was “blowing up” with senators, operatives, donors and other distraught Democrats doing “more than hand-wringing” about what happens next.
“Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn’t do it,” she said on MSNBC. “He had one thing he had to accomplish, and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age, and he failed at that tonight.” …
On Thursday night, Democrats were imagining scenarios in which party elders like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina were to intervene with Mr. Biden.
I have nothing else to say about this, but I’m very eager to read your thoughts.
In a sane society the collective realization that we have had a clearly senile person in charge of our nuclear launch codes for four years would trigger a major inquiry into how this happened, who enabled it, and why nothing was done about it sooner. And preferably, some public executions as a warning to not let it happen again.
Democrat party apparatchiks now have a pretext for installing a Biden replacement with no input from voters. Which raises the question of whether this was the plan the whole time. His obvious dementia is not a recent development.