I generally try to avoid writing about politics, but it seems important, as an American citizen with a platform, for me to speak up, so I'm firing this off. If you’re allergic to politics, feel free to ignore it. It’s about Biden and that very disturbing debate last Thursday night and my thoughts on it all.
Let me start by saying that I do not want to see Trump win. But after Thursday night, I can’t in good conscience vote for Biden either. So I’m writing this to add my voice to the growing chorus calling for him to step aside. Why do I want him to be replaced?
I heard someone with medical expertise say that what Biden has been exhibiting for some time now, and what everyone could see very plainly during Thursday's debate, looked like it might be Lewy Body dementia. I'm no doctor, and this person hadn’t examined Biden, but from my limited experience with these things, it does look like that: stiff shuffling walk, mask-like frozen face at times, falls, intermittent periods of serious cognitive impairment. Lewy Body also includes hallucinations, seeing things that aren’t really there—and, like Alzheimer’s, it can also involve personality changes—someone who is normally gentle and kind may become uncharacteristically violent, for example. I've seen it happen.
Possible hallucinations, personality changes, severe cognitive impairment—the fact that Joe Biden has the nuclear football, that he may have to make snap decisions about nuclear war, that he has conversations with world leaders in real time is deeply concerning indeed. And how much worse will it get over the next 4 years?
The Democratic Party and the liberal mainstream media have done their best to hide this for some time now and have enabled this man, while the Republican Party and the conservative mainstream media have enabled a narcissistic, sociopathic, self-serving liar beholden to the far-right who wouldn’t (and probably won’t) accept defeat. These are our current choices, among the actually electable. It’s a sad and scary day here in the crumbling empire—and for the world.
I hope Biden has the grace to step aside and that the DNC can replace him in time, but I won’t be surprised if he stays in the race and his self-serving enablers continue to enable him in order to save their own jobs, just like all those self-serving Republicans who hate Trump but support him to save themselves.
Speaking as someone in their 70s, I believe no one should be allowed to serve as president after age 70. Even without actual dementia, aging inevitably involves cognitive and physical decline. To deny this is gaslighting. And what Biden exhibited in that debate wasn't just aging, at least, I don't think so. And it wasn't just “a bad debate night," like the one Obama once had. To my eye, it looked like serious dementia, whether Lewy Body or another kind. And as far as I know, dementia is incurable and progressive. You can't will it away.
In case you missed the debate, here are my two favorite recaps:
First, from John Stewart, recorded live right after the debate:
And second, from Nellie Bowles, a liberal, left-leaning journalist and former NYTimes staff writer who writes a humorous weekly column about current events called “TGIF” for The Free Press, the publication that she and her partner Bari Weiss founded. This is Nellie’s column after Thursday’s presidential debate. Some of the column is for paid subscribers only, but even if you’re not, you’ll see enough to get the picture:
Well, my friends, as they chanted in the streets of Chicago many decades ago, "The whole world is watching." And what's on display right now is pretty sad.
Finally, I highly recommend Nellie Bowles’s book:
MORNING AFTER THE REVOLUTION: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History. It’s funny and serious and brilliantly insightful. Like me, Nellie has become disillusioned with some of the directions the left has taken, and in this wonderful book, she reports on it with humor and insight. In the wake of Covid and George Floyd and a rising stock market, “American politics went berserk, “ she writes. “Liberal intelligentsia, in particular, became wild, wild with rage and optimism, and fresh ideas from academia that began to reshape every part of society. The ideology that came shrieking in would go on to reshape America in some ways that are interesting and even good, and in other ways that are appalling, but mostly in ways that are—I hate to say it—funny.” Don’t miss this book!!! It’s a well-written ride through modern times and a real eye-opener. I love it. Very very highly recommended!
with Love and good wishes to all….
POSTSCRIPT from July 2, 2024:
I've heard a few people argue that it is ageist or ableist to express concerns such as those I've expressed in this post. I'm a 76 year old amputee living with an ostomy. I was an activist in the disability rights movement, I worked in the independent living movement, I have written extensively about disability issues in numerous articles and anthologies and in my own first book, I've been close to many people with disabilities over many years, and I live in a retirement community with many active elders. I’ve had friends and family members with dementia. I can assure you I'm not prejudiced against elders or people with disabilities.
In my view, there is nothing ageist about acknowledging the reality that aging inevitably involves some degree of cognitive and physical decline. To suggest, as I did, that no one should serve as president after age seventy is no more ageist than laws that say people must be at least sixteen in order to drive a car and at least eighteen in order to vote. Yes, those are all arbitrary lines in the sense that every individual will be in different shape when they cross those lines, but there's a good reason for setting these kinds of limits.
And there's nothing ableist about suggesting that a person with dementia or with any kind of serious cognitive decline should not be the president of the United States. I'm not concerned that Joe Biden shuffles when he walks, has occasional falls, or has the remnants of a childhood stutter. None of that, by itself, should matter at all. I brought up the shuffling and falling only because these may both be co-indicators of Lewy body dementia, which sometimes goes with Parkinson's disease.
The fact the FDR felt that he had to hide the fact that he'd had polio and that he used a wheelchair was the result of prejudice against people with disabilities—what is now sometimes called ableism. There is no reason why a person who uses a wheelchair can't be president. But there is a reason why a person with dementia shouldn't be president, just as there is a reason why someone with no hands, or someone who is blind, should not be a surgeon. A person with no hands, or someone who is blind could indeed be a different kind of doctor, or a lawyer, or a president, or many other things. Ableism is when restrictions don't actually make sense and when people are seen and judged in inaccurate, prejudicial, negative stereotyped ways. Recognizing real limitations is not ableism.
Concerns about the age of both Biden and Trump are legitimate concerns. Both have exhibited cognitive confusion, and especially Biden, who has repeatedly shown signs of serious cognitive confusion in the last year. That debate performance was not a one-time anomaly—it is something that's been happening more and more frequently. I've seen it in video clips, and people close to him have reported it. To deny it is a kind of gaslighting of the public and a danger to the nation and the world.
For more reflections on this post and some of what happened in the comments, see my next article: WHAT IS SPIRITUAL? It offers a non-political look at what gets stirred up in political discussions and what is spiritual and what isn't.
Yes, it’s a mess, for sure. Thanks for the book recommendation.
I agree with this article.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-27-2024?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true