Is Biden Fit To Be President? Let's Get Real And Open Our Eyes

After nearly 5 decades in politics, suddenly one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate is trying to "look" vaguely progressive. Status Quo Joe, once fought against Elizabeth Warren's bankruptcy proposals now says he backs them. Friday, at a small town hall in Illinois he said "I’ve endorsed Elizabeth Warren’s bankruptcy proposal, which... allows for student debt to be relieved in bankruptcy and provides for a whole range of other issues." I don't believe him. I believe his record. Watch the Mehdi Hasan video up top, "Forget the Gaffes, What About Biden's Lies?"

He doesn't lie as much as Trump. But he lies too much for public office. He's probably not as senile as Trump-- although I'm not certain-- but both of them are way too senile to lead our country. In fact Meagan Day took up Biden's severe cognitive decline at Jacobin the other day. "Biden’s boosters," she wrote, "want to sell him as the safe bet against Donald Trump. But running a man in clear cognitive decline against a mean-spirited bully who relishes the exploitation of weakness is anything but safe-- it would all but hand the election to Trump." Biden is afraid to participate in a real debate with Bernie and he's afraid to do extended TV interviews. He knows he's senile and doesn't want the American people to see it. And he's right to be worried. "The elder statesman," Day wrote, "is prone to lapses in coherence, to put it politely. The signs have been there for months: when Biden asked supporters to “go to Joe 30330 and help me in this fight” in the August debate, The Guardian called it 'one of the most cryptic gaffes of his career.' But it was only the beginning.

In his bid for the nomination, Biden has forgotten Barack Obama’s name repeatedly, proclaimed he was running for Senate, declared that over 150 million people have been killed by gun violence since 2007, confused his wife with his sister, confused Angela Merkel with Margaret Thatcher, and confused Theresa May twice with Margaret Thatcher. He’s issued an endless litany of baffling and embarrassing statements, including, “Tomorrow’s Super Thursday,” “We choose truth over facts,” “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,” “Why, why, why, why, why, why, why?” and “We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men and women created by the, go, you know the, you know the thing.”

Biden’s allies have attempted to explain all this away by pointing out that Biden has long struggled with a stutter. It’s true that Biden stuttered as a child, but it is not true that he’s always labored to verbally convey his ideas. For decades Biden’s speech was lucid, convincing, at times even charismatic. In 2012, he was lavished with praise for verbally eviscerating Paul Ryan during a vice presidential debate. Less than ten years ago he was confident, composed, funny, and alert when he spoke in public. Nowadays, his campaign makes a concerted effort to limit his exposure to prevent the likelihood of verbal slip-ups, confessing that they tend to happen “late in the day.”

If Biden’s stutter has anything to do with his constant verbal fumbling, even his allies have to concede that it somehow seemed under control for decades and has now reemerged. So, what’s triggering its comeback? The answer to many-- including many in the Democratic Party before they decided to consolidate around him-- is some kind of mental decline caused by aging. Some have speculated dementia specifically, but there’s no need to attempt a diagnosis. Many neurological conditions become more probable and pronounced with age. Some kind of age-related cognitive impairment seems more likely to underlie the issue than stuttering, given that not all of Biden’s gaffes involve searching for the right word and failing to find it.

For example, Biden is also given to sudden displays of aggression, such as when he called a voter fat and challenged him to a physical contest, and extended incoherent ramblings, such as when he answered a question about the legacy of slavery by complaining that parents are failing to make their children listen to record players at home. And when he tells blatant untruths, which is often, he seems less like someone who’s being intentionally deceitful than someone who can’t remember the truth-- for example when he said his son had acted as Attorney General or that he was arrested for protesting apartheid in South Africa.

Whatever its root cause, Biden’s extreme incoherence poses a serious liability in a contest with Donald Trump. The potential insensitivity of pointing it out is eclipsed by the danger of nominating someone who can’t hold his own in a general election. Trump’s mockery of Biden has already started, and offers a preview of what’s to come. Biden “makes a mistake every time he speaks,” says Trump. “I can just see these handlers … ‘Alright, get him off now, he’s been up there long enough!’ So they’re screaming, ‘Get off! Get off! Sleepy Joe, get off the stage! Please! … Damn it, he should have left sooner.’”

Over the weekend, Biden appeared for a mere seven minutes in St Louis, where he said, “We cannot get reelect, we cannot win this reelection, excuse me, we can only reelect Donald Trump, if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad here,” a bungled attempt to castigate his opponent Bernie Sanders for criticizing Biden’s efforts to cut Social Security. Trump ridiculed Biden by posting a clip of the speech that was edited down to say, “We can only reelect Donald Trump.”

News outlets sympathetic to Biden described the clip as manipulated, fake, or doctored. The editing was indeed dishonest, but while the full clip may clarify their meaning, they also show Biden struggling to articulate himself in public on one of the very recent few occasions that he’s ventured to do so.

Biden’s entire candidacy is premised on the idea that he’s the safe option. He stands for little, and even those close to him appear unimpressed by him. But at least nominating him is less perilous than nominating the radical Bernie Sanders, right?

Many of us on the Left argue that this is an incorrect assessment for political reasons. Biden’s record contains ugly betrayals of huge swaths of the electorate, from championing NAFTA, to authoring the 1994 crime bill, to supporting the Hyde Amendment, to selling Democrats on the Iraq War, to muscling through the 2005 bankruptcy bill that intensified the devastation of the economic recession. Between this past record and his forward-looking promise that “Nothing would fundamentally change,” his centrist politics alone make him an unappealing and therefore unsafe nominee.

But even if you find the political case unconvincing, it’s incumbent on you to at least give his mental state some serious consideration. If Biden is nominated, he’ll be forced into the spotlight every day for four months, without reprieve and with nowhere to hide. You can bet he’ll say many more things he will regret. He’ll no doubt make more gaffes than any candidate in history, and Trump will make the most of his windfall.

Running someone experiencing rapid cognitive decline against a mean-spirited bully who relishes the exploitation of weakness is worse than a risk. It’s a guaranteed disaster.

And for tonight, expectations aren’t high for Status Quo Joe after a series of mediocre debate performances during primary season. The Sanders campaign, among other Biden detractors, views the debate as a chance for him to fall flat on his face, reviving questions about the durability of his candidacy just as Biden is poised to break the race wide open with a four-state sweep in the March 17 primaries... Biden is prepared for Sanders to question his shortcomings with reaching out to the youth vote, and to acknowledge he needs to make gains with young voters. But the former vice president’s advisers say he’ll also note that Sanders fell short of his own promise that he had the singular ability to attract new voters and build a coalition that would beat Trump."

Biden is also expected to mention how most of the top former presidential candidates in the race endorsed him-- and not Sanders.

Sanders, meanwhile, is operating under some self-imposed constraints. The Vermont senator likes Biden and loathes Trump, and he doesn’t want to eviscerate Biden out of concern that it would only weaken him and therefore help Trump, Sanders advisers say. And they note the difficulty of being overtly political onstage at a time when coronavirus dominates the nation’s consciousness.

Attacking Biden too much could be perceived as just out of step with the moment in which Democrats want unity and seriousness of purpose.

“Bernie’s going to be careful about not looking too political-- too electoral-- and being the guy who says, ‘Well, I can get this many delegates and go on to the convention...’ No. That’s not where Americans’ heads are at,” an adviser said. “People are worrying about their families. They’re at the grocery store buying batteries.”





Because coronavirus has made health care an even more important issue, Sanders is expected to press Biden on his opposition to Medicare for all. Sanders also wants Biden to explain why he advocated for cutting Social Security years ago only to inaccurately suggest he never did.

“It’s not going to be an all-out assault. It’s going to be a policy debate. And it’s going to be a vigorous one,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders senior adviser. “But it’s going to be on policy.”

...Last week, the two campaigns clashed over the debate format. Sanders campaign wanted a standing debate that was moderated by professionals. Biden’s campaign was more inclined for a seated town hall-style format where citizens could ask questions.

...The dispute with the Sanders campaign over the debate format came as Democrats sympathetic to Biden started privately raising concerns that Biden didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to face Sanders on stage. Rumors circulated that the Democratic National Committee was under pressure to cancel the debate, which both the DNC and Biden’s campaign denied.

The debate ultimately wasn’t canceled, but it was moved to Washington, D.C., from Phoenix over concerns about coronavirus contagion.

Mike Ceraso, a former adviser to Sanders’ 2016 campaign, said Biden has captured the feeling of the party better than his opponents, winning a different type of expectations game.

“Expectations this time around isn’t about brains or performance. It’s about the story, man. Pete and Warren and Bernie’s stories are okay,” Ceraso said. “Biden’s story hits home. Loss and anger and sense of service and sadness are relatable qualities. They amplify with Trump in the background. Take the intellectual out of it. And focus on the heart. It’s cliche as hell. But...imagine if you’re someone who has a mom with Alzheimer’s or a depressed child or someone addicted to drugs.”

Some people say America deserves what it got for electing Trump and Democrats deserved what they got for nominating Hillary Clinton. That's pretty much the feeling I'm hearing today-- Democrats will deserve what they get if they nominate Biden-- whether he wins or loses in November. And the rest of us? Screwed again.