I’ve been scanning the sites I regularly consult this a.m. The preponderance of opinion writers believe President Joe Biden will end up dropping out of the presidential race, perhaps leaving the presidency before the end of his first term.
His interview with Stephanopoulos is widely thought to have done him no good. The feeling I’m getting is of a “deathwatch” where everybody hangs on the news as snippets of additional dismal fact emerge or leak out.
Major pro-Democrat sources like the New York Times and Washington Post have called for him to exit. Most Republicans are taking Napoleon's advice to let the Democrats' death throes play out without piling on.
Serious Democrats have to be quietly furious that they let their party get itself into this quagmire. It is, of course, the result of a series of satisficing choices made by party leaders. Each looked like the smart bet at the time but, in total, they added up to today's nearly insoluble political dilemma.
If we live long enough, what is happening to Joe Biden happens to everyone who doesn't die while still in reasonable mental health. Most people recognize this fact, even as we simultaneously hope it doesn't happen to us.
What we cannot predict is when it will strike us. Some get "foggy" in their 60s or 70s, more in their 80s, some are still somewhat sharp to 100. The other DrC had an aunt who managed that.
One thing we know, dementia hardly ever happens quickly. Normally it is a gradual process of several years. The "basement campaign" Joe Biden ran in 2020 tended to obscure his mental acuity, but the suspicion now is that he was already showing beginning signs of deterioration which were kept from us.
