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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29964 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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Biden's political instincts are stronger than many give him credit for.

This was the main reason I was hesitant to call him senile. Closing the border was a smart move. It neutralizes one of Trump's strongest arguments for moderates. It could be that his aging brain can't handle the bandwidth of spoken conversation. Maybe we need to put Biden in a Stephen Hawking chair for his own good. We could even give him his old voice back via AI.

Closing the border was a smart move. It neutralizes one of Trump's strongest arguments for moderates.

Was it?

There's no way that he can actually compete with Trump for the "no more illegal immigration" vote, and it is just going to hurt his numbers and dampen enthusiasm with his actual base. Furthermore, the manner in which he did it isn't going to convince anyone in the moderate camp - that claim will only last as long as it takes for someone to pull out a smartphone and google what he actually did.

Cross pressured voters are real. Someone out there might think "Trump's tariffs are going to be disastrous and wreck the economy, but this border situation is such a mess, we can't keep doing this." If Biden can make the border seem like not such an urgent problem, that voter then gets freed up to vote on the basis of tariffs.

While I can actually agree with that, I think that such people are a very small minority - and I also don't think he closed the border in any way that matters. The situation is still a mess, and Biden can't even begin to offer a real answer because his donors and political cohort want to make sure that the problem stays a big problem (because that big problem is incredibly profitable for them).

Closing the border was a smart move.

But he didn't really close it. Thousands are still getting through. Maybe it makes a nice sound bite, but I don't think it actually convinces anybody.

The worst part is that it's such an obvious political ploy. He had 3.5 years to fix the border and he's fixing it now!?

The chair would probably help. IMO, Joe's physical decline is a lot worse than his mental decline. I have a relative about the same age who has mild Parkinson's. His condition seems remarkably similar to what Joe has.

I actually agree here, he just doesn’t present as having the cognitive deterioration of someone with even moderate stage dementia. The debate and his flaws in it would be completely different if that were the case, he’s have been much more aggressive, more confidently wrong, speak many more sentences that were forceful and well-delivered but made little or no sense. Biden’s issue seems more like a physical degeneration, which is more congruent with the fact that in the morning or early afternoon when he has more energy and is presumably better (not necessarily more) medicated he can driver a more competent performance.

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