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Accusing somebody of "dishonesty" because they have a different viewpoint than yours doesn't really add much besides vitriol to the conversation. It's heat without extra light.
Republican age accusations against Biden ran the gamut from the reasonable to the absurd. Scott discussed some of the sillier ones in his article like how Biden was some sort of meat-puppet jacked up on every stimulant in DC. A lot of the dumber ones were either irony-poisoned, or coming from the QAnon bent, so I did the courtesy of not including those as it felt like a strawman. If you have an article that summarizes the right-leaning age arguments against Biden, then that would be valuable to add to the conversation.
Sure, people age at different rates, but the priors are that octogenarians and late-septuagenarians are really old no matter what. Maybe he'll make it to Grassley's age, but there's a much better chance he'll have a steep decline at some point. The decline has already started, it's just a question of when the floor falls out.
Accusing someone of being dishonest when they are being dishonest is an important way to ensure the conversation remains honest. You are being dishonest by trying to turn a story about Biden into one about Trump when they obviously aren’t the same. Classic case of deflection.
And Scott is quite full of shit here. His judgement was so bad that it wasn’t until the debate that he realized Biden was suffering from strong mental decline. In fact, Scott has been going downhill for a long time (basically since he was doxxed). He isn’t an authority.
Finally I don’t need to cite an article. It’s been obvious for a long time to any honest observer that Biden is suffering from a pretty bad case of mental decline. The debate just laid it clear for the world in a way that couldn’t be massaged away. Biden hasn’t been well for awhile and the people who need to own that are the people who’ve denied it — people like you and Scott. We shouldn’t be hearing from you “what about Trump.” We should be hearing from you “how did I get this so wrong.”
So you're not backing off the claim that I'm being "dishonest" here then. Please elaborate, what exactly do you mean by it? I've already said in multiple places that Biden is obviously worse than Trump in terms of age. Why isn't this enough? What would I have to do in your eyes to be having an "honest" conversation?
Some source (even a basic one!) would be helpful in evaluating how Biden's perceived mental decline in 2020 is being compared to Trump's potential mental decline today. You say it's obvious, but for people who disagree with you it might not be so obvious that Trump is far more robust than Biden was 4 years ago.
I’m saying you’re dishonest because you aren’t asking the right questions ie how did I get this so wrong.
And there are many clips. General observations. Heck compare the debates between 2024 and 2020. Trump doesn’t need to sometimes close his eyes to try to really remember what he wanted to say.
How would "not asking the right questions" be considered "dishonesty"? It seems like we're using very different definitions of that word.
In terms of clips, Trump has plenty of them himself. Like when he forgot the name of his doctor. Or how he keeps confusing Biden for Obama, then in the same speech he confuses Hillary for Obama. Or when he confused Orban as the leader of Turkey. Or when he confused Jeb Bush for W. Bush. These are the obvious examples. I'd say the best example was his performance in the debate vs Biden. Aging affects people differently, and while Trump can maintain a confidence cadence in his voice, his meandering speaking style has gotten noticeably worse (as I said above previously).
Of course you'll retort that these don't really prove much. Forgetting individual facts is something politicians do often, and while the rate at which Trump is doing so is increasing, as of now it's hard to say this is more than just a "warning sign". But of course, the same could be said of Biden in 2020.
I don’t think all of those things are mistakes. For example, it is a common belief amongst the right that Obama is really running the Biden admin behind the scenes.
Also Trump always meandered. But he had a train of thought that he always got back to.
He can also have an unscripted hour long pod cast fairly easily. See the all in podcast.
Finally, yes I think when your priors are destroyed in front of the nation resorting to what aboutism” suggests you aren’t truth seeking.
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