2024 Presidential Election - It's Gonna Get Weird

[Round Six]

A few thoughts:

The Democrats are not going to kick Biden to the curb. He's the head of the party. No democrat is even whispering that thought. That should tell you something. He only goes when Jill says so.

The NYT article should of taken the opportunity to suggest a possible solution or two.

And Rate's novelette was touching. But Biden is the President of the United States. No Rate, even a little incognitive don't cut it. Everyone but Fred Flintstone's grandma can take one look at him and tell the dimmer switch between his ears has been turned down. Without him even opening his mouth.

No Rate, it's not okay. Not on that job.

[Rate This]

A few thoughts:

The Democrats are not going to kick Biden to the curb. He's the head of the party. No democrat is even whispering that thought. That should tell you something. He only goes when Jill says so.

The NYT article should of taken the opportunity to suggest a possible solution or two.

And Rate's novelette was touching. But Biden is the President of the United States. No Rate, even a little incognitive don't cut it. Everyone but Fred Flintstone's grandma can take one look at him and tell the dimmer switch between his ears has been turned down. Without him even opening his mouth.

No Rate, it's not okay. Not on that job.

Are you accusing me with the exact same problem of being incognitive?

[bmw]

RT - thank you for sharing your story. And I wouldn't take the attacks on/criticisms of Biden too personal. This is politics. Nobody is attacking you. And considering that the POTUS is the leader of the free world, RS has a point. Even a little bit of cognitive decline opens up Biden to perfectly fair criticisms.

My opinion of Biden's cognitive condition is based in-part on comparing how he used to talk (even just 10-15 years ago) to now. The difference is night-and-day. You say he's always had these issues. I see it very differently.

[FakeAndyStuart]

The polls for the Republican caucus in Iowa - a caucus that is notoriously difficult to predict - were shockingly accurate.

The final poll done - the Trafalger poll - had:
Trump at 52 (he got 51)
Haley at 19 (spot-on)
DeSantis at 19 (he got 21)
Ramaswamy at 7 (he got 8 )

I was using recent polls to answer your question. You asked if Trump can get votes from anybody-but-Biden voters. The fact that he's polling at over 50% in a number of different polls - polls which never gave him those kinds of numbers before - would suggest that the answer MIGHT be yes.

Thanks for proving my point. Any poll taken in Iowa days before the caucus would have been looking for LIKELY caucus goers.. the caucus itself had a very low turnout.. and the poll and the caucus would CERTAINLY be overwhelmed with people that were paying very close attention. And virtually NO undecideds. People overly excited about participating in the caucus would be the same ones that would run thru a brick wall to answer a pollsters question.

And to your second point - polls aren't votes. Remember that, Mr. Non Existent 2022 Red Wave. Show me where voters will do that. They did in 2016 - Trump was the "lesser of two evils" and face it, male. What happens when both choices are male, and one is not Trump?

[FakeAndyStuart]

I actually think it is exceedingly likely that the Dems dump Biden.

Not gonna happen. Let me repeat for those in the cheap seats...
NOT GONNA HAPPEN

Now, if he decides to drop out, that's a different story. But my bet is he won't.

[FakeAndyStuart]

I actually think it is exceedingly likely that the Dems dump Biden. You said yesterday you were going to comment last night on why Biden's cognition is such a sensitive topic for you. Now would be a good time to comment.

I see, and many Americans see, Biden's cognition slipping rapidly. And in that state of decline, 10 months between now and election day is a long time. I know you see things differently. Many others don't.

Ok... here goes a twofold explanation. Firstly I watched both of my mother's parents die of actual dementia. It started slow and not as mixing things up but as telling stories for 20 minutes after it was appropriate to do so or even when it never was. Standing in the doctors office talking about whatever with the receptionist and missing all cues to shut up. That was new. That was my grandfather around 2008 or so. The next year I believe (see I don't have a problem and even I'm not sure... it could have been 2010) he was driving and ran into somebody.... and kept right on going not knowing he had hit anything, the cops had to go flag him down. That was the end of his license. Then the memory issues got worse and the outbursts began and eventually he fell and while in the ER he tried to give me a horse style kick. That would never have happened before this.

My grandmothers decline was even quicker... she was mentally gone within 2 years and didn't know who people were at all. At least he knew part of the day but her? Gone almost all of the time. Dementia usually takes people in 5-6 years and you don't recover from it and it's way more than mixing names up. The brain is literally unraveling. Those lines that are all squiggled around each other like spaghetti... whatever hold that as one piece breaks down and it separates and it can't function that way. By the last year of his life my grandfather was a World War 2 pilot... he had never flown a plane and spent a stint in Korea because he was 12 when the war ended. She died a year before he did and he got the joy of finding out every day that his wife of 63 years wasn't alive after looking all over for her. Every. Damn. Day. So forgive me if Biden mixing names of places or people up the last 5 years just doesn't do it for me. It isn't enough evidence by a long shot to say someone is cognitively declining. Especially when it's been consistent and the Republicans have been saying it since he declared in 2019 and he has long had gaffes like this in his career. 5 Years and we haven't budged on what is supposedly wrong with him. It doesn't work that way. Had this been actual dementia Harris would be your president now. He would be unable to read a teleprompter or answer a barrage of questions without flinching... any of it. Slipping rapidly is not remotely close to reality.

The second part of this. I write pretty well as you can see. I sometimes have a stutter bad enough to stop talking, close my eyes take a deep breath and start again because what's coming out is just word salad. I have been known to confuse things like for example the minute I droned on to somebody about MS when I meant Parkinson's before I was angrily corrected. I didn't even know I was that far off. If I go into a situation where I want to explain or advocate for something I often don't say the right thing because the words don't come to me that fast. There are pauses, I sometimes remember crucial things I should have said after the fact. Sometimes the wrong thing comes out and I sound like a rambling fool rather than the command I actually have of the subject. Other times I can think on my feet good enough to get by. Occasionally I do great at it. Biden suffers from the same thing, he is a lifelong stutterer. As I mentioned earlier in this paragraph that can manifest itself in other ways besides da-da-da-danger. So when he says Mexico instead of Egypt or green instead of blue or whatever it's most likely got to do with that problem. Especially since he's been making gaffes regularly his entire career. Now you couple that with old age and the brain, which is an organ after all, not as perfectly able to control the stutter as it may have when he was 35 and this is what you get. I will either get there too or get dementia first. So thank you for kicking someone like me because the words don't come out right.

(I left the entire quote up because it's on a different page.)
Poster - I feel you. My father and all of his siblings dies of Alzheimer's. It not only robbed my father of his personality, life and should - it stole him from us. It's a horrible disease and is not something to be mocked or made fun of.

It's also something that laymen shouldn't try to diagnose. I'm the most forgetful person in my circle, constantly searching for lost words and names that I should know. I have people in my circle that I have asked to pay attention.. because there may come a time where I don't remember that I don't remember. That's the point that scares me.

And mr/mrs/ms/he/she/they/them/WTF ever BMW - I see, and many Americans see, Trump's actual view of reality is slipping badly, and may almost be gone. And with 10 months til the election, I sure don't want his thumb on the button.

[Rate This]

I actually think it is exceedingly likely that the Dems dump Biden. You said yesterday you were going to comment last night on why Biden's cognition is such a sensitive topic for you. Now would be a good time to comment.

I see, and many Americans see, Biden's cognition slipping rapidly. And in that state of decline, 10 months between now and election day is a long time. I know you see things differently. Many others don't.

Ok... here goes a twofold explanation. Firstly I watched both of my mother's parents die of actual dementia. It started slow and not as mixing things up but as telling stories for 20 minutes after it was appropriate to do so or even when it never was. Standing in the doctors office talking about whatever with the receptionist and missing all cues to shut up. That was new. That was my grandfather around 2008 or so. The next year I believe (see I don't have a problem and even I'm not sure... it could have been 2010) he was driving and ran into somebody.... and kept right on going not knowing he had hit anything, the cops had to go flag him down. That was the end of his license. Then the memory issues got worse and the outbursts began and eventually he fell and while in the ER he tried to give me a horse style kick. That would never have happened before this.

My grandmothers decline was even quicker... she was mentally gone within 2 years and didn't know who people were at all. At least he knew part of the day but her? Gone almost all of the time. Dementia usually takes people in 5-6 years and you don't recover from it and it's way more than mixing names up. The brain is literally unraveling. Those lines that are all squiggled around each other like spaghetti... whatever hold that as one piece breaks down and it separates and it can't function that way. By the last year of his life my grandfather was a World War 2 pilot... he had never flown a plane and spent a stint in Korea because he was 12 when the war ended. She died a year before he did and he got the joy of finding out every day that his wife of 63 years wasn't alive after looking all over for her. Every. Damn. Day. So forgive me if Biden mixing names of places or people up the last 5 years just doesn't do it for me. It isn't enough evidence by a long shot to say someone is cognitively declining. Especially when it's been consistent and the Republicans have been saying it since he declared in 2019 and he has long had gaffes like this in his career. 5 Years and we haven't budged on what is supposedly wrong with him. It doesn't work that way. Had this been actual dementia Harris would be your president now. He would be unable to read a teleprompter or answer a barrage of questions without flinching... any of it. Slipping rapidly is not remotely close to reality.

The second part of this. I write pretty well as you can see. I sometimes have a stutter bad enough to stop talking, close my eyes take a deep breath and start again because what's coming out is just word salad. I have been known to confuse things like for example the minute I droned on to somebody about MS when I meant Parkinson's before I was angrily corrected. I didn't even know I was that far off. If I go into a situation where I want to explain or advocate for something I often don't say the right thing because the words don't come to me that fast. There are pauses, I sometimes remember crucial things I should have said after the fact. Sometimes the wrong thing comes out and I sound like a rambling fool rather than the command I actually have of the subject. Other times I can think on my feet good enough to get by. Occasionally I do great at it. Biden suffers from the same thing, he is a lifelong stutterer. As I mentioned earlier in this paragraph that can manifest itself in other ways besides da-da-da-danger. So when he says Mexico instead of Egypt or green instead of blue or whatever it's most likely got to do with that problem. Especially since he's been making gaffes regularly his entire career. Now you couple that with old age and the brain, which is an organ after all, not as perfectly able to control the stutter as it may have when he was 35 and this is what you get. I will either get there too or get dementia first. So thank you for kicking someone like me because the words don't come out right.

(I left the entire quote up because it's on a different page.)
Poster - I feel you. My father and all of his siblings dies of Alzheimer's. It not only robbed my father of his personality, life and should - it stole him from us. It's a horrible disease and is not something to be mocked or made fun of.

It's also something that laymen shouldn't try to diagnose. I'm the most forgetful person in my circle, constantly searching for lost words and names that I should know. I have people in my circle that I have asked to pay attention.. because there may come a time where I don't remember that I don't remember. That's the point that scares me.

And mr/mrs/ms/he/she/they/them/WTF ever BMW - I see, and many Americans see, Trump's actual view of reality is slipping badly, and may almost be gone. And with 10 months til the election, I sure don't want his thumb on the button.

Åmen. I have never met anyone walking around in the wild that talks like Trump or acts like Trump and is considered anything but incapacitated. Normal people just don't do the things that man does. They don't speak the way he does. I'll take a few confused words over a guy who gives incoherent speeches that last 2 hours and just go on and on meandering all over the place any day. And to boot.... he did NOT do that when he was younger. Not at all. He actually sounded lucid then. I have noticed a lot of the arguments Trump makes rely on projection of what are actually his problems. I have long had the feeling trying to tar and feather Biden is an effort to distract from Trump's clear decline. Beemer may not believe me but compare Trump 1990 to Trump now. Two completely different people.

[Rate This]

RT - thank you for sharing your story. And I wouldn't take the attacks on/criticisms of Biden too personal. This is politics. Nobody is attacking you. And considering that the POTUS is the leader of the free world, RS has a point. Even a little bit of cognitive decline opens up Biden to perfectly fair criticisms.

My opinion of Biden's cognitive condition is based in-part on comparing how he used to talk (even just 10-15 years ago) to now. The difference is night-and-day. You say he's always had these issues. I see it very differently.

That may be true and I appreciate you taking the time to read what I wrote. Have you done an equal comparison of Trump in say 1990 or 2000 with his speeches now?

[Mega Hertz]

Let's go to the tape:

August, 1990

https://youtu.be/5TwVCuPJrMw?si=iIlZba3QKF9sM9x1

[bmw]

Let's go to the tape:

August, 1990

https://youtu.be/5TwVCuPJrMw?si=iIlZba3QKF9sM9x1

That's some vintage Donald Trump right there. He's perhaps a bit more patient and a bit calmer, but there's no doubt who that is.

Here's one from 1980. Even then he was being asked about Presidential aspirations.

Frankly I see more difference in his personality between 1980 and 1990 than I do between 1990 and today.

[Rate This]

Let's go to the tape:

August, 1990

https://youtu.be/5TwVCuPJrMw?si=iIlZba3QKF9sM9x1

Well... the braggadocio is there... the outlandishness is there... but now he sounds a lot less together and more meandering... he's definitely lost something in 34 years. Zzand is right... age limit of 65 and it should be an easy amendment to get enough states to sign on to.