Excellent argument from Josh Marshall, at TPM — “Has Ol’ Man Trump Lost His Touch?”:
… [P]olitically [Trump] is very, very rusty. Even in Trumpian terms his speeches these days are disjointed, weird, discordant. And again — not by the standard of who you might want within a mile of the Oval Office. I mean even in terms of Trumpian politics. He’s not the same.
I suspect some of that is his age. Some of it may be that he’s just out of practice, despite basically campaigning from the moment he left office. Trump used to have a very clear eye for what people wanted and what they didn’t. Plausibly or not, back in 2016 he was very clear that he had no interest in touching Social Security or Medicare. Why? Because people like them. Trump wants love and he wants power. The way to get those is to make people happy, to give them what they want or at least tell them you’re going to give them what they want. He was very down on Obamacare. But that is because back in 2016 the word if not the program was still not very popular. A politician like Trump is never in the business of convincing anyone that it’s important to do something that doesn’t sound fun and immediately appealing.
Once in power, of course, Trump essentially delegated most of his policy agenda to the GOP. The only thing that seemed to really animate him was trade policy or using domestic trade subsidies to reward supporters — which amounted mostly to the same thing. But in most respects Trump’s entire presidency amounted to taking office with the assumption that being President meant unlimited power and unlimited love. That quickly turned out not to be the case and much of his subsequent presidency and post-presidency became a mix of grievance and payback for that not being the case.
There is a key difference here that is important to understand. Trump’s 2016 campaign’s success stemmed in large part from channeling the cultural and social grievance of middle aged white American men. His 2024 agenda is heavily focused on his personal grievances and doing away with all the restraints on the presidency that hobbled him and led to ego injuries in during his first term — Trump Unbound, as it were. (Think back to 2016 and consider where the “Deep State” or unbridled marxist civil servants would have figured into anything he was talking about.) His enemies are your enemies and he’s going to kick all of their asses. We know all this. It’s the essence of most of his speeches, threats, and so forth. To execute on this he’s surrounded himself with a cast of ideologues who have created a program for him. The folks making the plans are unsurprisingly hard core right-wingers who support a lot of very unpopular things. That’s why Project 2025, the Trumpian government blueprint assembled by a group of Trump administration alums under the aegis of the Heritage Foundation, looks like such a juicy target for Democrats. The people around Trump now know how to write out the plan, how to plug it into the various departments and agencies, and whatever other right-wing stuff that goes along with it is fine with him because it all means power and retribution in his hands…
I’ve thought for some time that Trump shows a lot of the signs of the kind of rage dementia that often eludes detection because the energy of the aggression gets read as focus and executive function rather than cognitive deterioration. What’s been harder for me to read is what part of this is the psychic pressure of the 2020 defeat combined with the accumulating legal peril and what is the accumulated impact of going from 69 years of age to 77. Whatever the precise mix, it also impacts his political agility and feel for the popular mood. It leads to stuff like this wholly unforced social insurance goof. This probably won’t be the only example. It hasn’t gotten much attention yet because even though Trump gets coverage, he hasn’t been in the mix of an actual campaign in years. We’ll see more of it because, again, he ain’t the same.
Trump on Social Security: weapons grade gibberish—-> pic.twitter.com/WvPQKb2CeW
— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) March 12, 2024
Hahahahaha – Elon Musk Edition
TBone
Everything he touches turns to crap like a reverse Midas. He must never touch the U.S. again.
cain
I can’t friggin figure out what the fuck he’s talking about in that last missive.
But watching the campaign running around because they dared to repeat some shit some right wing influencers has been saying. They have no clue what they are doing.
The entire Trump base largely eligible or will be eligible for social security. But hey, I’m all for them to making mistakes.
dmsilev
@cain:
That’s some authentic frontier gibberish.
greenergood
‘ He was very down on Obamacare. But that is because back in 2016 the word if not the program was still not very popular.’ – never forget, that Obama dissed him at the White House Correspondence Dinner roasting, not just a president, but a BLACK president. Trump would never forget that, which is why Obama is living rent-free in Trump’s increasingly addled brain. If Trump was even vaguely a nice guy, I’d pity him, but for him, I have none.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
50% inflation? Is that what he means? And if it is, what the hell is he thinking [sic]? And if it isn’t, what the fuck does he mean?
Dan B
@dmsilev: 50% inflation, Wow! TFG has some news sources from another dimension.
Ned F
Way back in the 1970’s, there was a bumper sticker I saw repeatedly. “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”
I think a lot of those who grew up to be Trumpers took that message as gospel.
Geoduck
@dmsilev: That, sir, is an insult to the memory of Gabby Johnson, who was bravely standing up to thuggish villainy, not endorsing it.
mrmoshpotato
Haven’t even read the post, but the thought of Dump touching anyone or anything is disgusting.
B1naryS3rf
The more apt question is: do the mostly white, muddle headed, silently racist bipeds who dwell in suburbs and exurbs across WI, MI, PA, GA, AZ, and NC know and/or give a fuck?
It’s sad we need to care. Wilfull ignorance sure does appear to be in vogue, eternally, like chocolate ice cream. And I’m not sure all the so-called woke, whether caricatured or actual, are willing to negate the influence of those who carry that MAGAt banner proudly.
Joe Biden’s failure to give them magic ponies like telepathically making Netanyahu cease fire for all eternity may end up being the doom of this country.
Harrison Wesley
A quote too stupid to have been generated by AI.
CaseyL
His audience, and the GOP base, is getting smaller and smaller – but more and more purely crazed.
By November he could be speaking in tongues, oozing ectoplasm, and having grand mal seizures… but the GOP will still vote for him, and the MSM will still normalize every spittle-flecked discharge.
mrmoshpotato
Josh, maybe it’s all the drug taking and the syphilis.
satby
mrmoshpotato
@greenergood:
That’s because Dump is a racist shitstain who deserved to be told to go fuck himself by the country’s first Black president.
“Here’s my long form birth certificate, and bin Laden is getting hunted down right now, you orange shitstain!”
cain
@greenergood: Can’t wait for some more gibberish with Obama being put out there. It’ll be hilarious if he keeps talking about Obama like he’s running against him instead of Joe.
wjca
Is that what he’s doing!
And here we all thought it was senile decay. But if it’s speaking in tongues, no wonder the evangelicals are fine with it.
CaseyL
@wjca:
Senile decay, speaking in tongues…A distinction so fine one could argue they’re the same thing.
cain
@B1naryS3rf:
Predictably, some of these people are already saying with the latest stuff with Israel planning to flood Gaza with food reversing their previous position (thanks Biden!) is “too little, too late” and I’m like “too late?” These people are starving.
They insist that Biden can do more with an EO.
I’ve noticed a general attitude from these folks and take any topic they care about it always starts with:
“Biden (or Obama) can solve all this with an executive order, he can correct it – right now!”
These people have no idea how the fuck the govt works. They just want quick authoritarian solutions.
cain
@wjca: People will still go to the Trump rallys. They want to meet up with the other Trumpers and make it like a congregation type of thing.
It’s funny how they believe how welcoming they are but will turn on you if you go outside the orthodoxy. Crazy fuckers.
bk
What was once a big and brawny economy came up to me with tears in its eyes and said “Sir”
mrmoshpotato
@Dan B:
His colon is another dimension? 😁
B1naryS3rf
@cain:
My favorite is the rage post-Dobbs. Or post-student loan forgiveness denial by SCOTUS (and he still forgave billions anyway by their priceless EOs). I’m just like “Where in the seven hells were you in ’16, dipshit? Hillary and we done told your ass.”
Baud
@cain:
Bad faith. Don’t sweat it.
Martin
I think this is just where the GOP is. They’ve trapped themselves. They spent decades building a set of euphemisms for what they really wanted to do (punish minorities, etc.) which Trump then weaponized as ‘political insider talk’, killed all of those euphemisms and just straight up said he wanted to punish minorities. That helped him in 2016 when the media said to not believe him – because you can’t say that. But by 2020 people believed him because he kept doing that. I mean, he stole children from migrants, ffs. So he can’t say what he wants to do without euphemisms, he can’t go back to the old well of euphemisms because the land of David Frum has been truly salted, and these people aren’t clever enough to come up with policies where hurting minorities is a predictable derivative, so they can’t invent new euphemisms. So they fill the vacuum with conspiracy theories and gibberish, because they have to say something.
Sure, it could be Trump losing it, but he’s not alone. Everyone on the right just sounds like a goddamn lunatic.
Bill Arnold
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
He said “cumulative”. People in RW land have fuzzy-mathed that the Biden administration accumulated 30 inflation over 3.x years, and Trump inflated it yet again to 50 percent.
AlaskaReader
Trump Library Expansion continues…
Odie Hugh Manatee
I have to disagree with Josh on TFG’s campaigning. Josh says he’s been doing it since he left office. Nope. He’s been campaigning since 2015. He has never quit campaigning, announcing his 2020 campaign right after winning in 2016.
It’s good to hear that the Orange Racist Energizer Bunny is petering out.
SpaceUnit
His noodle is fried.
Even when he was president TFG didn’t do anything but watch Fox News, tweet, and eat hamberders. Now his life is a shitstorm of legal jeopardy. The dude is unraveling.
Martin
@satby: I’ve worked with students with stutters. Stuttering is typically managed, but not cured. It’s not surprising to me that as Biden gets older the stutter is getting a little harder to manage. This whole campaign centered on his speech really should be called out as ablism because there are very obvious explanations for his speech difficulties.
Cheez Whiz
I think the thing to watch will be Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention. It will be the 3rd “formal” political speech of his career. Remember the 1st 2 have titles like American Apocalypse and American Carnage. They were all about the imminent collapse of American society that only he could stop. If the 3rd speech is all about himself as a Christ figure being persecuted for fighting for his base, I don’t think it’s gonna have the same oomph. There’s a big chunk of the base who see Trump that way, but it’s far from all of them, and saving Trump isn’t gonna have the same resonance with “independent” voters that saving America did.
persistentillusion
@AlaskaReader:
Very nice!
cain
@Baud: their whining kills my zen inside my brain.
Ten Bears
I should have called it, it took a day longer than I’d anticipated for him to start blaming “AI”
Harrison Wesley
Actually hearing and reading the word salad spewing out of him makes me really wish there would be a debate. I would definitely find a taproom with a TV tuned to it. Once-in-a-lifetime entertainment.
Dan B
@mrmoshpotato: Now I understand! Thank you!!
lowtechcyclist
@wjca:
Wait, the Southern Baptists used to be dead-set against speaking in tongues. Has that changed? I admit I haven’t kept up.
eclare
@Martin:
Plus I think that stress probably makes any disability worse, but I am not a Dr or speech pathologist. . Dealing with the wars going on in Ukraine and Gaza, with the real possibility that Russia could take over Kyiv, has to have an effect on him.
TBone
@Harrison Wesley: debates should be scheduled for when he must appear in Court, just to fuck with him a bit more.
Harrison Wesley
@TBone: I like it!
Frankensteinbeck
I’ve been saying all of this. Let me add that something happened around the turn of the year. Trump has deteriorated hard since then.
K-Mo
This whole thing is a really interesting thesis.
Could it be that Trump’s cognitive decline, even if no worse than Biden’s, will be harder to accommodate because he’s needs to do more to tout an inherently bad set of policies and cover for some serious personality defects?
Does it imply a set of debate strategies to tangle him up?
Lyrebird
On the one hand, I agree with you.
On the other hand, when I encounter someone who can even *imagine* criticizing Biden’s occasional mispronunciations in the same thought as they are promoting Mr. Nambia ArgleBargle (TFG), I doubt that anything I could say would be of help.
Quadrillipede
Perhaps not 100% on topic, but if you’d told me at the weekend that Ken Buck of all people was about to do something I unreservedly approve of, then I’d probably have looked at you like you’d just grown a second head…
Quadrillipede
Heh. I’d actually forgotten about Nambia…
Suzanne
@Martin:
Ben Shapiro saying that people should never retire, for one.
They’re all just terrible people.
WaterGirl
@Harrison Wesley: Speaking of Trump’s word salad, take a look at this great clip.
Jackie
@Martin:
This. When Biden speaks, it’s readily apparent his occasional stutter has NOTHING to do with his mind – which is as sharp as ever.
TIFG is going to have a difficult time attacking Biden’s stutter for eight months – especially as we’re all watching his own speech liabilities worsen by the day. By Nov, TIFG will literally be incoherent, and I wonder how his handlers will attempt to hide that.
Citizen Alan
@cain: The only difference between the DSA types and the maga freaks is what they want their absolute dictator to do once he takes office.
bbleh
@CaseyL: I think this is right. They’re becoming progressively more detached. The questions then remain of (1) enthusiasm of the committed / informed and (2) activation of those less so. I believe that Dems have the advantage on both, but it’s gonna take WORK to make sure that’s the case in November.
Donate, volunteer, organize, dammit! Do it NOW. That’s what’s gonna make the difference between sanity and an ugly doom
@cain: I think people who say that are mostly justifying their own preferences. They sympathize with Trump, they prefer he would win, and they’re looking for justifications to feel that way. What hasn’t Biden waved his Magic President Wand? Mister Trump has one!
HinTN
@mrmoshpotato: Best laff all day!
Quadrillipede
Every Republican is useless, but Sunk Cost is also one hell of a fallacy, it seems.
eclare
@WaterGirl:
Excellent. Plus Swalwell emphasized that TIFG and Gym did not sit for an interview, but Joe did.
Ruckus
He ain’t the same.
He’s far, far, far fucking worse.
If one could imagine the worst of the worst of the worst human beings to be president of 332 million people, Donald shitforbrains Trump would be the picture that would scar your brain. The only thing he brought to the office last time was stupidity and ignorance. What he would bring now would be hate as hot as the heat of a blast furnace. Along with far more stupidity, ignorance, and a list of asinine grievances, every one of which would exist because of his stupidity, ignorance, and dementia.
I’m an old. I’ve seen relatives of the prior generation have dementia. Nice people with dementia often feel bad because they can’t recall your name or why they know you. Complete fucking assholes – see D-SFB-T, hate that they no longer can fuck with you, remember what name they made up for you, that they have to sit down to crap, and that on occasion they have to get their diaper changed because of that strange smell. They still think they are top of the chart of humanity, but they’ve been so wrong about that for so many decades – that ain’t changing.
Harrison Wesley
@WaterGirl: Words fail me. Not as badly as they fail him, though.
Quadrillipede
Either I’m misunderstanding this, or I’ve been doing something unnecessary my whole life… 🤔
thruppence
I work in retail and a few days ago some middle aged woman expressed distress about the upcoming election. “They’re both terrible!” I let it go with a shrug because retail, but is she a normie? If so, we’re really on the knife edge.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Everyone on the right just sounds like a goddamn lunatic.
What they say they want has not been a reality for a long time, because people overthrew those types of government. They were closer 50-60 years ago but with the advent of computers and communications far superior than what we had in the lifetime of old farts still alive what they want is, well – fucking ridiculous. As it always was and always will be. Because what they want is a government of and by the few, the ignorant, the assholes. IOW themselves.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: That video, and the video where TIFG’s being questioned about about his photogenic memory and “he doesn’t recall” saying that – “I might have said that, I just don’t remember.” He can’t recall what years he was married to Marla Maples; or when he married Melania. That clip makes me laugh every time I see it.
Eyeroller
@thruppence: I assume she was white. Also, why would somebody bring up politics with a retail employee? That seems inappropriate.
frosty
@AlaskaReader: OMG that is excellent! I especially like the Grift Shop. And the Hall of Enablers.
Quadrillipede
@Jackie: He also mistook E Jean Carroll for Marla in one of the defamation trials IIRC, which was notable as well…
topclimber
@CaseyL: He is just giving us examples of the “languages no one speaks” that he mentioned on his trip to the southern border a week or so ago.
Jackie
@Quadrillipede: That was priceless!
Well, worth $5M!😂
Ruckus
@Quadrillipede:
I sit down to crap. I of course use a toilet, which has a seat – to sit on.
If you are shitforbrains – who it seems wears a diaper, you don’t have to sit down to crap. Of course if one is out in the woods one can squat. And even though men can pee standing up (woman can as well, it just seems that it is slightly more difficult to aim)
Hoodie
@Martin: Watch about the 4:40 point in Kimmel’s monologue. That is a truly nutty scene, like something out of North Korea:
His power over us
Grows stronger yet!
And though Dems turn from you
They glance behind
The President of the United States is in their mind!
WTF? Trump also looks really old and unhealthy. He definitely has a waist well north of 40 inches, with a lot of abdominal fat. Looks like he’s off the Wegovy and back on the KFC. Compared to a comparatively svelte Joe Biden he’s a fucking wreck.
Quadrillipede
On the outside of the US (looking south), I feel reasonably confident that Biden will get re-elected this year, but I’m more concerned about a repeat of 2020 which was clearly not enough of an electoral drubbing to persuade the GOP to be less insane. Here’s hoping Joe gets enough leeway to pass some decent legislation and do something about the Supreme Court this time around.
Or maybe the Republicans will continue to render themselves unelectable in 2028, but that’s a long time away…
Quadrillipede
@Ruckus: Thank you for the clarification (I think…) 🤢😆
Jay
@thruppence:
@Eyeroller:
when I worked retail, I had quite a few political conversations with customers.
It was mostly because of “reasons”, they were used to getting less than “satisfactory” customer service. So, when they got exceptional customer service, they would broach political issues.
wjca
No, no, no! Don’t give him an excuse not to show up. Pick a day and time when he doesn’t have to be in court. (Surely there’s going to be at least an occasional Sunday available…)
WaterGirl
@Jackie: I have never seen the video you are referring to. If you happen come across it, I’d love to see it. Don’t go hunting just for me, though.
Jackie
Gavin Newsom went at Johnson today!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
WaterGirl
@Jay: People know when they are dealign with an actual person, not just a cutout; I think they sense it.
When I worked at the University, our IT group bought a baby gift for the janitor when he had his baby. Most of the other people in the building never even saw him.
glc
I’ll toss in a cryptocurrency update (and other frauds) from the unsinkable Molly White.
Lots going on. As McDonald’s says, billions and billions sold. Or stolen, as the case may be.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: This was played during yesterday’s congressional hearing:
https://youtu.be/UC0jY5KYZuo?si=B0npBsxbqVGq2_bJ
Quadrillipede
In any event, it certainly seems evident that nobody in DJT’s life cares enough (or is persuasive enough) to sit down with him and have an “interventional conversation” about quitting public life with whatever few remaining shreds of dignity he still has.
bbleh
@Quadrillipede: treating narcissists is, as I understand it, quite a challenge. If you sympathize with them, you encourage their delusions, and it makes things worse. If you challenge them, you encourage their paranoia, and it makes things worse. And by all accounts, he’s a particularly severe case.
Were I close to him for any length of time, I’m guessing I would have given up and walked away just to maintain my own sanity.
Matt McIrvin
Let me ask a scary question: Does it actually matter if Trump is mentally and physically deteriorating? I doubt he even needs to campaign at all to do well in this election–he just needs to exist as the symbol, Trump. The bomb that will blow up everyone you hate and everything you’re sick of.
He ain’t the same, but clearly we ain’t the same, either. The attitudes we’re seeing in the population seem to be a kind of national suicidal drive.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Matt McIrvin: I know we often bemoan the quality of the electorate here. I think it’s not as bad as we sometimes paint it. Sure there are die-hards and crazies. [ETA that’s not most people.] I’m an optimist so I think we’ll win. Don’t count on my predictions though.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Thank you, I definitely had not seen that.
danielx
@cain:
So kinda like Deadheads, except that Deadheads are/were mostly harmless and easy to get along with.
danielx
@Suzanne:
I missed that one. But about what I would expect from someone who has never spent a day sweating at manual labor.
BellyCat
Nominated!
(Of course, you are referring to Balloon Juice, right?) /s
catclub
No, he is ‘calculating’ cumulative price increases – wrong of course, and over some unknown number of years. So he is trying to say that over some unknown time period overall prices have increased by 50%. And that is his inflation. Totally unrelated to how normal people do it.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Ben Shapiro’s job is basically the same as a regular person spouting off on Facebook, so naturally he wouldn’t see any point in retiring–it’d just be the same thing.
catclub
My counter question is: Does he need to get undecided voters to vote for him, as we think VERY many did in 2016? I say yes, in which case the dementia is not doing him any favors.
Ruckus
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
I’m an old my own self and have seen family members of the previous generation showing signs of age and dementia before they passed. ShitForBrains is showing us what a pompous, arrogant, asshole old fart sounds like. Everyone’s life ends at some point. At this point, as far as I know I’m the oldest in my extended family of cousins. I was the third born of all of my cousins and in my family. I’m the only one left in my immediate family. One of the previous generation in my family tree had Alzheimers. In my experience and given the amount of care we had to provide to the Alzheimers patient and being around the other Alzheimers patients in facilities, this is dementia. Now I’m not a doctor but I’ve seen this up close and very personally and for a number of years.
Librarian
That’s strange, I keep hearing that his campaign is more professional and disciplined than before. I guess that no matter how professional it is, that can’t make up for the fact that his brain is slowly turning into tapioca.
Steeplejack
Test comment on iPad.
Ruckus
@catclub:
the dementia is not doing him any favors.
Dementia never does anyone any favors. In this special case though, I’d bet the public display of dementia of close to the lowest scum on earth will do the nation a favor. Now many of his campaign speeches have always seemed at least a tad demented but actual dementia, seen behind a lectern, on live TV may not change the minds of the voters who think his shit doesn’t stink, but everyone else in the human race will notice that he is not fit to be out of a facility or in public.
Jackie
@Librarian: I keep hearing the same reports. “Suzie Wilkes (TIDG’s campaign manager) is a professional and knows what she’s doing.”
I’m not seeing a significant difference between 2016 or 2020 from now. The PROBLEM is TIFG himself: He can’t/won’t follow directions/instructions because “I alone can fix it and I know best!”
I’m okay with that.
Uncle Cosmo
Makes perfect sense in their minds: “Less than satisfactory” customer service marks the server as one of The Others. “Exceptional” customer service must come from someone who is not one of The Others, therefore thinks exactly the same as they do, therefore they jump at the chance to share the political outlook you two must have in common. I’ll bet when you told them you most definitely did not share their views (you did tell them, dincha?) you could look in their eyes and see the circuit breakers blowing from the cognitive dissonance.
Jackie
This made me chuckle! Apparently the No Labels recruiting isn’t going so well:
prostratedragon
@Hoodie: 😯Great googly-moogly! I heard that this evening while I was in the next room and assumed it was a parody — someone actually was singing to and for him!
Quadrillipede
I think it’s enough of a problem to deter a decent chunk of non-fanatic voters in 2024, but I do wonder how many younger, more intelligent sociopaths are watching and thinking about how they might build on Trump’s “legacy”. It’s too early to suss out the continued political viability of the GOP once the old man has to step down, but I wouldn’t be sad to see them go the way of the Whigs…
Jay
@Uncle Cosmo:
Nope. One example, Elderly Vietnamese gentleman, brought his granddaughter in to translate for him, ( he had a bit more English as Another Language, than I had Vietnamese, my Vietnamese is Menu). Back in Vietnam, he was a Physic’s Prof, here he’s a “handyman” in the Vietnamese community.
After 5 minutes, she walked away, because her Grandfather and I were furiously communicating on how to properly add a basement bathroom drainage tied to an existing stack, through the concrete, with sketches, and what tools he would need, and how to use them safely.
He came in a second time, with her, same thing happened,
3rd time, he came in alone.
4th time, she came in by herself, to thank me for helping her Grandfather and asked me about “immigration”.
Another time, two lesbians, had their pet rat find a hole in the wall. Walked them through the rescue and repair. Came back in to let me know the rat was rescued, wall was repaired and repainted. Told me how dissed they were, not just because of the pet rat, but because they were lesbians, by so many other places they had turned to for help.
Only had one “political” encounter with someone with out my values. Some anti-mask ruZZian woman “arm candy” karening about me wearing a mask. Let her have her say, then just responded with “I ain’t dying for minimum wage and to make you feel comfortable”, “cash, debit or credit card?”.
Ironcity
@wjca: Sunday evenings, about sunset.
Bupalos
@Martin: is there any salient political difference between “Biden is declining cognitively” and “Biden’s stutter is harder to manage as he ages?”
Personally I think we’re spending way too much ineffective time being defensive and angling ourselves into a box with denial on the issue of Biden’s age.
Sean
@Matt McIrvin:
This is precisely how I understand it. I don’t think it matters. People have seen this for some time and he polls near even. We can accept polling as imperfect and debate its value, but it charts trends. The trend is not a downward one for Trump, at least not yet, despite his inanity. Maybe it changes as we go further into the year and the consequences start to become more real for folks, but whatever his mental state, it doesn’t seem to be a drag at this point in time.
Paul in KY
@Geoduck: ReRuh!!!
Paul in KY
@Martin: Good summation.
Paul in KY
@K-Mo: It is much worse.
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: Have had to pop a squat a few times in woods to crap. Need either some TP or some nice big, soft leaves.
Protip: Make sure leaf you are using is not one that has anti-predator defenses like little threads that make you itch. Make real sure…
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: His minions would like him to be gaga. Henry VI was propped up due to his inability to say no to any of his servitors who were fleecing him & country left & right.
TFG is like an asshole version of Henry VI (in intellect, ability/desire to do job, etc.)
Paul in KY
@Jay: I never had anyone give me shit about wearing a mask. Wish a motherfucker would have…
Quadrillipede
Thought experiment: how many other Presidents would have accomplished as much as Experienced Joe Biden did in his first term, given the slim majorities and the obstacles he had to work around or through?