"Would you . . . ?" Part Two: Scum and Stammerer. (Presidential Debate Thread)

[Core Imposter]

Now some are saying that a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris, somehow assuming that Biden is going to neatly die and pass the baton. That's not how it works. The VP would be excluded after the election and Biden's circle would grow ever smaller the better to hide his condition. In most cases there will be periods of time when Biden doesn't know what is happening and may not be able to communicate interspersed with time when he is lucid.

We may be in that period right now. The standard is good days and bad days and good mornings and bad afternoons. One thing we can count on is that all of the people in the inner circle will work to hide the truth. Because the biggest aphrodisiac in the world is being inside the room of absolute power. No one is going to make a phone call to let the cabinet know that the president is in the early stages of dementia. No one is going to exile themselves from the presence of the exercise of pure power. Human beings can't do it, well, maybe some can but don't bet on it.

So, the most likely outcome is that even if Biden stays in the race and wins there will be times, maybe critical times, when decisions will be made by his family members and inner circle advisors. And other times when no decisions can be made at all because Biden will have to be hid away until a more cogent moment arrives.

Somebody needs to step up. We aren't running a candy store here.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Here's an alternate take:

Yesterday’s debate has raised concerns about whether Biden’s cognitive abilities might be impaired. The concern rests primarily on a moment early in the debate when he lost his train of thought in the course of answering a question, and his sentence just petered out feebly. Other aspects of his debate performance were unimpressive. His answer to a question about abortion got bogged down in an unfocused schematization of trimesters. His voice was generally low and inward. If it were only these latter things, one could say he just had a bad night. But the early moment, where he seemed to lose his train of thoughts strikes many as possible evidence of mental impairment.

I think that concern is overblown. People do draw blanks sometimes. He was at the end of a long discussion of a tax plan that would tax billionaires more heavily to provide for a host of social services, and after listing some of them, he seemed to forget the next one in his prepared list. Another explanation than disability might simply be that when he did fumble for the next element of his list, he became overly self-conscious and froze. He bounced back and had no similarly concerning stretch through the remainder of the debate, although no one could say he ably managed any of the questions put to him.

But my primary aim is not to soften the impact of that moment. It did look bad, and since Biden’s age has been the primary concern about him, the way he faltered can easily be taken as evidence of a mental decline.

My main aim is to point out that there has been no similar criticism of Trump’s cognitive abilities, as evidenced by yesterday’s debate. The analytical framing of the debate has been that Biden was muddled whereas Trump was mendacious. One fact-checker identified over thirty falsehoods in the 45 minutes of Trump’s responses. But why are Trump’s falsehoods considered only a moral failing and not a cognitive one? If you met someone new, and over the course of a 45-minute discussion with that person, they said thirty things to you that you knew did not conform to reality, you would think that person was cognitively impaired. Seriously so!

Now, if you had reasons for believing that person had designs on you—as politicians do--you might categorize the comments as lies, and evaluate them primarily from a moral rather than a psychological perspective. And of course, with Trump, lying is “baked into the cake.” Are his lips moving? But although he was more composed and focused and forceful than Biden, there is one element of last night’s debate performance that makes me think we should be just as concerned about Trump’s cognitive abilities as we are about Biden’s. Twice he was asked a question—once about child care and once about opioid addiction—and instead of answering the question, he instead responded to some previous comment Biden had made.

In itself, of course, that’s no big deal. Politicians do that all the time. Answer the question they wish they’d been asked rather than the question they were in fact asked. But what made Trump’s cases stand out was that he altogether forgot what question he had been asked. In both cases he got a second chance to address the issue because the moderators reminded him of it. In both cases, he again said nothing to the issue, in fact seemed truly oblivious that it had been asked, and that despite the fact that in one of the cases, he promised that his digression would come to bear on the asked question. That is a cognitive impairment.

Joe Biden lost track of the fifth of five social goods he would like to achieve if he raises billionaires’ tax rate from 8 to 24 percent. Donald Trump not only lost track of two questions he was being asked, but in is pique about one of Biden’s comments even lost track of the fact that he was being asked questions at all. Trump covers this up with bluster and bellowing. It is a moral failing that he has no plan to help Americans with child care or with opioid addiction, and so little interest in doing so as to not even address himself to the question. But it is a cognitive failing that he didn’t even remember he’d been asked it.

 

[Core Imposter]

Gori, how much personal experience do you have with elderly persons who developed dementia and/or Alzheimer's as opposed to less severe cognitive decline that is often referred to as senility?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Only one. My grandfather. Last night didn't look like that.

But my point is about Trump's mind.

And how his lying actually, oddly, wins him a pass on being evaluated relative to his cognitive abilities.

 

[r16]

it is all fiction . The only man who could stand up to ... has been replaced 4 or 5 times or whatever in my country and nothing happens to the voting blocks . Bidon is after some legacy and Hunter is a curse . But like only in law abiding countries .

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

If she turns out 10k voters in Michiga voting against her specifically who would stay home otherwise, and cannot get 10k for her specifically in the booth, that could be the difference.

She might turn out some because of her stand on abortion, but many black voters are sick and tired of her and Biden, and their promises and photo ops in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. They (and even some Black Dem representatives in State legislatures) are very annoyed at repeated pledges of support with no subsequent delivery.
And they are extremely annoyed at recent arrivals of immigrants, who get subsidized housing and other benefits, as well as money being spent on Israel, Taiwan and especially the enormous amounts on Ukraine, when they get nothing. Or they get some funds for projects meant to last 15 years, but swallowed up in 2 or 3 years because of their urgency.

So what could Harris do to do to bring those voters back into the fold?
Promise them that the Dems will reduce the gap between rich and poor? Lather them with motherhood statements? Tell them to fear Trump? None of those are going to make an iota of difference this time.

Many are not going to vote, or they're thinking about RFKJr or, as much as they don't want to, Trump to send a message to the Dems. There were recent long reports in Politico and elsewhere from Milwaukee and other Rust Belt regions which should be chilling for the Dems, particularly because they have been counting Wisconsin as a near certainty.

Come on Gavin Newsome or Jamie Raskin. It is time to step up.

I never thought of Raskin as a contender the several times I read about him or watched him in action.
His was an excellent contribution in the Jan 6 hearings, particularly given his personal situation at the time.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Alternately, we could just settle the election with some kind of golf-off.

 

[amadeus]

One fact-checker identified over thirty falsehoods in the 45 minutes of Trump’s responses.

How many were said by Biden? I know of at least one in the first thirty seconds.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Alternately, we could just settle the election with some kind of golf-off.

Golf is played on sacrosanct ground: it's where foreign policy details are discussed.
Parade them in a motor cavalcade through major cities, e.g. Dallas, and let the public decide.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Golf is played on sacrosanct ground: it's where foreign policy details are discussed.
Parade them in a motor cavalcade through major cities, e.g. Dallas, and let the public decide.

NYC or SF would be better.

 

[Gori the Grey]

You may have missed his joke, Bird.

 

[Farm Boy]

Too soon?

Regarding mental abilities, I think it is already built in that Trump is an idiot. People know. Not saying it is a social convention and test. Like calling Taiwan Taipei.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, my next little essay is going to make the point that Biden's mind processed thoughts in a more complex fashion than Trump's throughout the debate.

As an example, Trump once spoke of illegal immigrants taking "black jobs." Not "more heavily impacting the African-American workforce," or "taking jobs disproportionately from Black workers," or something along those lines, but taking "black jobs." That's a crudity of thinking which, as you say, we long ago "priced in" with Trump.

But if the question that Biden's debate performance raises is cognitive ability, let's actually put their two cognitive abilities side by side, without the curve on which we regularly grade Trump for no reason other than that he's been so dumb for so long that we've become numb to it.

Now I gotta go watch that damn debate again. Bleh.

 

[Samson]

Yeah, my next little essay is going to make the point that Biden's mind processed thoughts in a more complex fashion than Trump's throughout the debate.

Just the little bits I watched, around the 5 mins you posted, make this clear. However Trump has always had a style where he does not need to hold more than a handfull of tokens in his head at any one point, and come out with a stream of consciousness that does the job, for some values of the job. Biden is used to making coherent arguments to rational people and that is a lot harder at 81 and to the american people.

 

[Core Imposter]

Well one thing for sure, Trump being a convicted felon and thus an underdog, that's over. Biden is the underdog now.

 

[Core Imposter]

The big thing about this debate that isn't being discussed is, "where was Candy Crowley?" Jake Tapper didn't put his finger on the scales. Makes a big difference, doesn't it?

If there is a second debate will the fact checkers be back?

 

[Birdjaguar]

You may have missed his joke, Bird.

I did not. I just set the stage for a different emergency room outcome.

 

[Farm Boy]

Those who get the fancy ****?

 

[Core Imposter]

Things not mentioned in the debate:

"The rent is too high"
"Mortgage rates are how high?"

Not that those nails were needed.

 

[ls612]

Mortgage rates being high is a function of interest rates being raised to combat inflation. Given the benefits of having an independent central bank I for one am happy that didn't come up.

Rent being too high is a function of not building enough housing for the past 30 years, there is literally no short term solution, and the only solution at all is to remove burdens to building housing for the next decade+.