A World Power Embarrassed and Humiliated by Unacknowledged Dementia

President Biden’s political allies and donors put on a brave face for a long time, in spite of accumulating evidence that their leader was losing his mental faculties. But his embarrassing debate performance against Trump exhibited to the world a man who was repeatedly losing the train of his thoughts and was manifestly unprepared for the pressures of a public debate.

In a New York Times op ed, actor George Clooney, one of the Democrats’ most high-powered donors, lamented that the President had clearly declined significantly in his mental acuity, and opined that he cannot win in November. He said out loud what a lot of Democrats already know in their hearts, but have been afraid to articulate in public:

We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign….As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, whom we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question….This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate.

Remarkably, the head of State of one of the world’s leading powers is permitted not only by his wife, but also by his “handlers” and party comrades, to continue with the charade that he is a competent leader or is fit to hold office for another four years, in spite of the manifest signs that his dementia is crippling his mental acuity and making it impossible for him to do things as elementary as crossing a stage, looking like he knows where he is, or posing for a group photo without assistance.

The other day, at the Nato summit, Biden referred to the Ukrainean president as “President Putin.” These gaffes are only likely to multiply as his dementia progresses. Meanwhile, Biden, presumably with the complicity of his wife and his White House team, continues to put on a brave face and stick to his story that he can win, and is not going to pull out of the race.

How is this bizarre and pathetic situation even possible? It is only possible because the old idea that politics is a form of public service, and that the public interest comes ahead of private ambition, has been displaced by the idea that we must get our hands on power no matter the price, and no matter how many lies and half-lies we have to peddle in the process.

The fact that Biden and his handlers are clinging to power, in spite of the fact that the average American now knows that the man’s public appearances are a national embarrassment, shows us two things: first, that Biden’s allies and advisers are failing at their job, standing idly by while the man they are supposed to protect and support is publicly humiliated on a frequent basis. Second, that the race to hold power has utterly overwhelmed common sense and sound judgment.

Now, the end of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign looks all but inevitable, no matter how sanguine Jill Biden might be. It is just a question of Biden and his allies having the good grace to acknowledge that the ravages of age are a part of the human condition that nobody on this earth, no matter how powerful, can reverse.

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