There is no other way to put it, the president of the United States is exhibiting disturbing behavior and a great many people seem to be in denial about it.
“You yeah, well what about Trump?” I hear. “What about all those tweets?”
Yes, Trump has a loud and obnoxious personality that sometimes makes his most fervent supporters squirm. But that is a personality issue, this is an issue of cognitive impairment. And it’s not Trump in office now.
On Friday, May 28 addressing a crowd at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, Virginia a woman introduced Biden while her three children
were with her on stage. The youngest was a little girl who looked to be elementary school age.
“I love those barrettes in your hair, man,” Biden said. “I tell you what, look at her, she looks like she’s 19 years old, sitting there like a little lady with her legs crossed.”
Yes, there is video.
This is of course not the first time people have noted Biden gaffes and odd moments where he zones out for a few seconds.
The cover story his people have come up and his supporters fervently embrace, is that he had a childhood stutter he overcame by heroic
efforts, and a lingering effect is hesitations while speaking as he gropes for the appropriate word or phrase.
Nonsense on stilts. There is ample record of his speaking ability going back decades which has shown not a trace of this until recently.
His detractors say when surprised by inconvenient questions which he cannot answer he simply lies.
Whether you believe that or not the point is – it takes a certain quickness of mind to come up with lies on the spot. Whatever you think of Biden’s honesty, politics, and personality, throughout his career he has displayed a quick and agile mind.
It’s gone now. And people around him know it and are protecting him from prolonged contact with the press, as favorable as it is to him. At press conferences he starts out strong then seems to run out of steam. Then they hustle him offstage.
Friends who have been caregivers to relatives with dementia tell me they recognize the signs of someone fading in and out of lucidity.
No doubt others who have the same experience can be found to deny this. I know about denial too from family experience. We denied to ourselves that a young relative was exhibiting all the signs of autism. Because we were terrified of the thought someone we loved would never live a normal life.
Friends had to tell us many times before we acknowledged the truth.
Now many of us need to acknowledge that this is not normal behavior!
The only time we’ve had a similar situation was in Woodrow Wilson’s second term after a stroke left him partially paralyzed. But Wilson didn’t have to go live on camera and his wife and staff could maintain a semblance of normalcy to the public.
Maybe you think it was necessary to get Trump out office whatever the means. But that is a separate issue we can argue about later, this is about the man now sitting in the president’s chair. And bare months into the administration we have to realize this is not sustainable over the next four years.
PS: Published a few weeks ago and Biden’s behavior is even harder to explain away, though many still try.
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