The gaslighters are finally admitting that Biden is old

An obvious truth hidden in plain sight is suddenly common knowledge: At 81, Joe Biden is old — and losing it.

Apparently we needed an epically disastrous debate performance, an op-ed from George Clooney and Biden mixing up Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with Putin, along with referring to Donald Trump as his Vice President at the NATO summit yesterday, for permission to believe our own eyes.

I’ve long had concerns about the president’s fitness to run the country, but the debate at the end of June was even worse than I expected. Of course, his 78-year-old opponent is no spring chicken either, but it’s no exaggeration to say the contrast between the candidates’ sharpness was as stark as night and day.

But what was most shocking to me is how many other people were shocked by the performance — as if they’re only just now realizing that the president isn’t as sharp as he used to be.

I have many friends on the left, and I was floored to see how many of my smart, inquisitive, well-informed peers didn’t see Biden’s blunders coming. Where have they been — burying their heads in the sand?

Since the debate, the Overton window shifted. All of a sudden it’s okay to point out a very elderly doddering man is in charge of our country.

Multiple New York Times editorials have called on Joe Biden to step down. Democratic members of Congress have demanded the same. Even George Clooney, a long time donor and supporter of Biden, pleaded with the President to step aside in a Wednesday op-ed.

I’ll give them credit for finally calling a spade a spade. But the spontaneous narrative shift is eyeroll-inspiring. 

So many of us have been calling it like it is for ages — including reporters at this very paper who have been pointing out Biden’s trail of gaffes for years. But, rather than engage with meaningful concerns about Biden’s fitness, many on the left roundly dismissed us.

The deniers claimed we were participating in a right wing smear campaign. Unflattering clips of Biden were shrugged off as politically motivated, plucked out of context, surreptitiously edited, or merely in poor taste.

It’s not in bad faith to demand that your president have the mental capacity to lead the free world. Just because a media source you don’t like points something out doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Conservatives have voiced concerns about the President’s advancing age since his last campaign in 2020.

That’s when he asserted that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” He then inexplicably called a young female voter a “lying dog faced pony soldier” and also called a retired Iowa farmer who challenged his fitness to run “fat” and “a damn liar.”

His presidency, too, has been filled with blunders.

In March 2022, in the early days of the war in Ukraine, he flippantly said Putin “cannot remain in power” — an apparently unauthorized call for a regime change that his panicked staff quickly walked back.

In September of 2022, he looked for a “Representative Jackie” in a crowd during a speech— apparently forgetting her last name, and the fact that she had died a month earlier.

Then, in June 2023, he bafflingly touted “plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean.”

Biden has even read instructions from teleprompters out loud, throwing “end of quote,” “repeat the line,” and “pause” into his speeches throughout his term.

When he was asked about his mental focus on “60 Minutes” in 2022, his response inspired minimal confidence: “Oh, it’s focused. I’d say it’s — I think it’s — I — I haven’t — look, I have trouble even mentioning, even saying to myself, my own head, the number of years. I no more think of myself as being as old as I am than fly.”

The list goes on and on … and on. Even after the debate disaster, his attempts at redemption have ended with him putting his foot right back in his mouth.

On July 4th, he told WURD radio station that he is “proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman to serve with a black president.”

And during a campaign speech he confidently asserted, “I’m staying in the race. I’ll beat Donald Trump. I’ll beat him again in 2020.”

This is sad. This is uninspiring. I don’t want to live in a country ruled by a president in mental decline — or his unelected handlers.

Biden’s health can longer be ignored, but, thanks to some combination of willful ignorance and gaslighting by the mainstream media, many American have managed to miss what’s been right in front of them months and years.

This isn’t just vindication for those of us who have been sounding the alarm bells. It’s also a reminder to those who’ve found themselves blindsided to evaluate the evidence, think for themselves, and believe their own eyes.