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Notes -
There’s mentally not 100% and there’s barely aware. Biden is pretty far gone into dotage. The guy who scans an audience looking for dead people, who needs to be told how to exit a stage, or apparently falling asleep in a memorial service for victims of the Maui fires is pretty far gone.
And part of why the mental acuity of Joe Biden never became an issue is that unlike Trump, there were not really any large scale public appearances where his mental decline would be on display. He didn’t hold rallies or big campaign events where he’d be expected to speak without preparing a speech. Or where someone might notice that he needs help to exist a stage. His campaign was largely social media and traditional ads where his speech and behavior could be edited for coherence in a way that can’t be done at a live event.
Of course this was massively helped by the constant drumbeat of “voting for anyone other than Joe Biden and Democrats is a vote for literal nazi fascist ideology.” That sort of discourse makes critical evaluation of the candidates much harder. Biden never really came off as a good candidate, even among the democrats I talked to. Nobody was excited about him. The entire thing was about Trump and the importance that Trump not win.
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