If Trump is the GOP’s Nominee Biden’s Age Is Irrelevant

If you are still unable to see who is more fit to serve, you clearly ought to have your memory checked

Democrats should stop handwringing about President Joe Biden’s age. Yes, at 81, he’s too old for the most stressful job in the world. However, his likely opponent is Donald Trump, a morbidly obese, largely incoherent 77-year-old crank. Republicans trying to use Biden’s maturity against him is like the Egyptian pyramids complaining about the wear and tear of Stonehenge.

If Democrats are remotely competent, the age issue should be a wash. They can create endless ads highlighting Trump’s “Geezer Gaffes” and crazed ramblings that make the defeated ex-president look more tired and outdated than his regressive agenda.   

The age issue, of course, came to the fore last week after special counsel Robert Hur issued a partisan, 388-page report, declining to prosecute Biden for his handling of classified documents, yet slyly burrowing a damaging anti-Biden attack ad within the long-winded text. 

“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur cattily sneered in his report.

The “liberal” media, of course, ignored the political hatchet job and pointed out Hur previously clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist and was nominated by Trump in 2017 for the job of U.S Attorney for the District of Maryland.

Nah, instead there was a ferocious piranha-like feeding frenzy where the press aggressively devoured Biden and bent over backward to prove to conservatives they are nonpartisan. In Fox News parlance, the press tried to show how “fair and balanced” they were, by treating Biden unfairly and failing to accurately portray Trump as mentally unbalanced. The corrosive coverage painted a portrait of Biden as senile, while Trump was cast as the stable genius.

Much of the media is under the dangerous delusion that if they are friendly enough to Trump, he won’t label them the “enemy of the people.” That if they ask shallow questions, they won’t be considered handmaidens of the Deep State. If they toss him enough softballs, Trump won’t play hardball with reporters if he’s reelected.

It is a sad day when we must rely on the ever-shape-shifting Nikki “Snake” Haley to provide the truth about Trump’s senioritis. “The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016,” she hissed on TODAY. “He is unhinged! He is more diminished than he then he was!”

When will the news media wake up and realize that MAGA is a cult, and their profession will always be despised, because their business is truth and Trump is a pathological liar. No matter how much they grovel and genuflect to the red hatted mad hatters at his creepy rallies, it will never be enough to earn their love. If the media wants to be honest and fact-based about MAGA voters, it will say they are crazy, conspiratorial crackpots devoid of rationality and reason.

A new Monmouth University Poll revealed that 1-in-5 Americans believe a “covert” plan for pop star Taylor Swift to help reelect President Joe Biden “exists” — a whopping 83% of whom plan to vote for former President Donald Trump.

Yet, the media is clutching their pearls about Biden’s mental acuity? The President’s worst senior moment is far superior to the most sentient moment of Trump or his supporters. They live in a twisted fantasy world where Trump is an honest, respectable family man – and most insanely, a good Christian who deeply loves America.

We all saw how much Trump cared about the country this week, when he jettisoned a bipartisan immigration bill, that handed the GOP virtually everything they asked for, so he could use the broken border as a campaign issue.

Additionally, we witnessed the absurd and deeply troubling—and Trump inspired-- House impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. New York Times editorial board writer, David Firestone, accurately said, “the very nature of the impeachment vote demonstrated the atrocious flimsiness of their case and their contempt for constitutional standards.”

Donald Trump also encouraged our archenemy Russia to attack members of NATO:

Trump said “one of the presidents of a big country” at one point asked him whether the US would still defend the country if they were invaded by Russia even if they “don’t pay.”

“No, I would not protect you,” Trump recalled telling that president. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”

Obviously, if mental fitness is the top issue in the 2024 election, the NATO comments alone should disqualify Trump. He is a dangerous demagogue and continues to serve as either a Russian asset or Putin’s useful idiot.  

In terms of the substance of Hur’s unprofessional “report,” why was he surprised that Biden could not remember, under extreme pressure, precise dates? In a New York Times op-ed, Charan Ranganath, a professor of psychology and neuroscience and the director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California, brought some clarity to the issue of age and memory.

There is forgetting, and there is Forgetting. If you’re over the age of 40, you’ve most likely experienced the frustration of trying to grasp that slippery word on the tip of your tongue. Colloquially, this might be described as forgetting, but most memory scientists would call this retrieval failure, meaning that the memory is there but we just can’t pull it up when we need it.

On the other hand, Forgetting (with a capital F) is when a memory is seemingly lost or gone altogether. Inattentively conflating the names of the leaders of two countries would fall in the first category, whereas being unable to remember that you had ever met the president of Egypt would fall into the second.

Calling up the date that an event occurred, like the last year of Mr. Biden’s vice presidency or the year of his son’s death, is a complex measure of memory. Remembering that an event took place is different from being able to put a date on when it happened, which is more challenging with increased age.

In other words, an individual’s age does not say anything definitive about the person’s cognitive status or where it will head in the near future. Memory is surely relevant, but other characteristics, such as knowledge of the relevant facts and emotion regulation — both of which are relatively preserved and might even improve with age — are likely to be of equal or greater importance.

The 2024 presidential election is a choice between two elderly men. One is highly accomplished, but sometimes, can’t remember specific dates. The other is a criminal, rapist and failed businessman who can’t remember that America is a democracy, NATO is our friend while Russia a foe, and that our presidents swear allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.   

If you are still unable to see who is more fit to serve, you clearly have memory problems of your own and ought to have your head examined.